As you already know, the verb gustar is used in order to communicate what you like or dislike. With the verb gustar, you will use the indirect object pronouns that you just learned in the previous section. These pronouns are placed before gustar. In this section, you will see how to use the verb with infinitives, so that you can talk about what you like (or don’t like) to do.
| gustar – to like | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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As you can see, what changes is the indirect object pronoun, and not the ending of the verb. You will note that the ending of the verb is –a—third person singular—all the way through. While we translate the verb gustar as “to like,” it literally means to be pleasing. What pleases you (which will be shown by the infinitive that follows gustar) is actually the subject of the sentence; the person who is pleased is expressed by the indirect object pronoun. So, for example, if you want to say that you like to dance, you will say, Me gusta bailar. Dancing pleases you! Let’s look at some examples of how to use gustar with an infinitive.
| indirect object pronoun + | gusta + | infinitive |
|---|---|---|
 Me |
gusta |
leer y esquiar. 
Foto: Monica Arellano-Ongpin CC BY 2.0 |
| ¿Te |
gusta | nadar? |
| Nos |
gusta |
ver películas románticas. 
Foto: Eduardo Otubo CC BY 2.0 |
| ¿A ustedes les |
gusta | nadar? |
| A Daniela no le |
gusta |
jugar al tenis. 
Foto: robbiesaurus CC BY-SA 2.0 |
| ¿A Felipe y Rosa les |
gusta | ir a la playa? |
| No, no les |
gusta |
ir a la playa. 
Foto: Mike Vondran CC BY 2.0 |
| Les |
gusta | ir a las montañas. |
When you are using the third person indirect object pronoun le or les (just as you learned in the previous section), it is necessary to clarify about whom you are talking with a…. Once you have clarified that, you no longer have to keep repeating the names. The difference you might have noted is that when you are doing this with gustar the a and name of the person generally come before the rest of the sentence, rather than at the end.
Click the video below and watch the tutorial to help you improve your understanding of the verb gustar.
