Expressing personal attraction in Spanish with gustar
The verb gustar is used in Spanish to express when a person finds another person attractive in that special romantic way! In the UK we often translate this as he fancies you, but in this lesson we will translate it as he likes you.
In this case Spanish uses personal pronouns, i.e yo, tú, usted, él, ella, nosotros-as, vosotros-as, ellos-as.
The verb gustar in these cases functions as a "normal" conjugated verb which is different to how you use gustar when you want to express that you like something or like doing something. Find the link at the bottom of the lesson to revise this.
Most importantly, the subject in these sentences is the person who is liked, not the person who is doing the liking. This can cause confusion for learners. It can help to think of the literal translation, to say you like me, you literally have to say I am pleasing to you. See below.
Let's see how this works in El Presente:
| yo | gusto |
| tú | gustas |
| él / ella / Ud. | gusta |
| nosotros /nosotras | gustamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | gustáis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | gustan |
Take a look at this sentence that means You like me but which can more literally be translated as I am pleasing to you:
Yo te gusto a ti.
You like me.
Both te and a ti refer to the person I am pleasing to, in this case you. In fact, a ti reinforces te. We can omit a ti and the meaning of the sentence does not change:
Yo te gusto.
You like me.
And, as you may be aware, in Spanish we often omit the subject pronouns, so you can also say:
Te gusto.
You like me.
More examples
The pronouns underlined in the examples above show who is doing the liking which in Spanish are indirect object pronouns because this structure can be literally translated as Someone is pleasing/attractive to someone.
We can omit [without changing any meaning]:
- the subject (Yo, tú...)
- the pronouns with a (a ti, a mí, a ella...)
But the indirect object (te, me, le...) cannot be omitted.
Grammatical structure
For learners, the main complexity of these sentences is the "inversion" of the subject when we compare it to the construction in English. Take this example:
Yo te gusto = You like me
Yo te gusto = You like me
Yo (I) = subject
te (to you) = indirect object
gusto (am pleasing) = verb
You like me = Yo te gusto
You like me = Yo te gusto
You = subject
like = verb
me = direct object
Notice how the subject in the Spanish sentence (yo) becomes the object in the English sentence (me). And the object in the Spanish sentence (te) becomes the subject in the English sentence (you).
Some students find it easier to follow the more literal translation using the verb "to please" instead of "to like"; this way the subject and the conjugated verb is easier to identify and it follows the English structure. For example:
Tú me gustas
You please me
¿Yo te gusto?
Do I please you?
This way it is more of a direct translation.
Reciprocity or liking each other
When the "liking" is reciprocal (i.e liking each other) then we will use the plural reflexive pronouns: nos, os, se.
Have a look at the following examples:
See also Using gustar in Spanish to say you like something.
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