- Forum >
- Topic: Spanish >
- "Europeans like to drink wine…
"Europeans like to drink wine."
Translation:A los europeos les gusta beber vino.
44 Comments
@MattMoran's explanation below is the only thing that made sense to me. Think of this as "To the europeans, it is pleasing to drink wine." It's awkward in (modern) conversational english, but it works for me.
See these references . They will explain. https://personal.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/gustar2.html
This second reference is great.
1913
Gusta or gustan ? Why gusta and gustan, i would say gustan but apparently this is niot correct. To me the explanations here make it mire puzzling.
The only way it makes sense is to realize that "gustar" does not actually mean "to like." It means "to be pleasing to". (Although duolingo won't let you translate it "correctly".) A literal translation of "A los europeos les gusta beber vino." is "Drinking wine is pleasing to the europeans." There is no way in spanish to write "the europeans like drinking wine" You must turn it around like this. Gusta is correct in this case because the subject "beber vino" - "to drink wine" is singular. You use gustan when the subject is plural. For example "Me gustan mis amigos." - "My friends are pleasing to me" or "I like my friends."
Ok I have another question, I used "los europeos gustan de beber vino" and it was incorrect... why?
Four problems:
-
You're missing "a" before "los europeos".
-
You're missing "les" before the verb. In Spanish it's common to have an indirect object represented twice, with both the noun ("a los europeos") and the pronoun ("les").
-
the action "beber vino" is singular, so the verb should be singular "gusta"
-
there should be no "de" before "beber vino".
Because when you use gustar, you have to include an object pronoun. In this case, les.
It is singular because of the infinitive . Gusta(singular)+infinitive always. Hope it helped
Never heard of this rule. How would you translate The Europeans like to eat apples? Does the plural direct object change things? Gracias.
- "A los europeos les gusta comer las manzanas." Europeans like to eat apples. (Literally "eating apples pleases Europeans".)
As for verbs being used as nouns, yes they're treated as singular, as in English. I believe they're also treated as masculine.
- "Comer manzanas es divertido." Eating apples is fun.
gustar is referring to the wine --- not the Europeans. So, it's gusta -- singular.
It is refering to the drinking of the wine. Therefor, the eating of the appleS also uses gusta, as someone mentioned earlier.
I was marked wrong for writing ... "el vino"... I thought it was OK to include the definite article when talking about a noun in general. If "los europeos" is OK, why not "el vino"?
Why does it have to be "los" europeos? Could the definite article be omitted?
Gustar is a land mine. Not only is an article necessary, but the A preposition is also required. DL is correct here.
I think you include the articles when you talk about something in general. Like Europeans in generals or cars in general. Not 100% sure
Tomar is often used for consuming food and beverages. Why is it unacceptable here?
Why the a los? can someone just break down this sentence, the les is killing me
The literal translation of gustar is "to please." When we like something, it pleases us, and that is the way it is expressed in romance languages. A more literal translation would be "Drinking wine is pleasing to the Europeans." "Les" is the indirect object pronoun meaning "to them," "los Europeos" is "the Europeans," and "a" is necessary in Spanish for many interactions with people.
why 'the europeans' is the indirect object instead of a direct object? If this is the case, what is the direct object in this sentense? Thanks.
Why does "Les gusta beber vino a los europeos" not work? Does a los europeos have to precede the rest and why?
why 'the europeans' is the indirect object instead of a direct object? If this is the case, what is the direct object in this sentense? Thanks.
because verb gustar only has 2 forms - gusta and gustan. It doesn't rely on the subject of the sentence but rather the object. Gusta is used when the object of the sentence is in singular (like vino in this sentence) and gustan is used when the object is in plurar (example: A los europeos les gustan comer quesos.)
