Because the subject is "il pollo"; "piacere" is more "to be liked" than "to like". A mnemonic help is translating it as "to be pleasing" and then reorganizing the sentence: in this case it would be "To the girl is not pleasing, the chicken".

I would like to know if an Italian speaking person would understand if you said la ragazza in this sentence instead of alla ragazza?

I think the connotation is that when it comes to food, "the girl" finds chicken to be the most unpleasant. Maybe she finds fish delightful, but chicken does not please her. Am I on the right track?

Out of all the responses, yours is the only one that makes sense. Thank you.

One of the other exercises using this same sentence was a "choose the correct sentence among the given" and the correct choice DID NOT have the article "il" before pollo. But I got it wrong when I omitted it in my answer.

Good question. I thought so too, but DL gave me the correct answer as not including the il [pollo]. I see this screen has it though. ??

I don't know about Spanish, but in Italian it has nothing to do with piacere, and everything to do with the fact that you always have to use an article before the subject: just like you can't say "pollo è buono". Even if that weren't the case, Italian almost always requires an article in front of general concepts.

Because we are talking about a specific girl, so the definite article is needed. The english equivalent would be saying something like "I throw the ball at girl" instead of "I throw the ball at the girl."

Doubling the object can be done as a form of emphasis, yes; whether that's okay is subject of debate. It's been drilled into us as children never to say things like "a me mi", and it could cost us grades in a school test, so most Italians tend to consider it unacceptable (especially in writing) or dialectal, but most grammarians acknowledge that it's been around for centuries and there's nothing wrong with emphasis. So yes, you'll hear that, especially in some regions, but be careful using it; it's not normally accepted in this course for instance.

In this context it means "at the" or "to the." Remember, "piacere" doesn't mean "to like," it means "to please," which is why "pollo" is the subject and "ragazza" is the object. As such, the literal english translation would be "At the girl does not please the chicken."

It's just a weird thing with piacere you have to learn. You have to add "a" (in its proper form) to the article (le, la, etc) so it becomes 'to the X'. So la ragazza becomes (a + la = alla) alla ragazza.

Others above explain the grammar rules better than I can. LOL...

Cause their Italian and don't do it that way? They'd mostly likely know what you meant, but might chuckle that the chicken didn't like the girl. Hee Hee

Good Luck...it is confusing

In the sentence, "Alla ragazza non piace il pollo" , the literal translation is "The chicken is non pleasing to the girl." We would translate the sentence as "The girl does not like chicken." "Il pollo non piace" would translate "...is not pleasing to the chicken" or "The chicken does not like..."

See Chel451498 listed in this thread for the grammar explanation.

As explained many times on this thread, the girl in this sentence is the object, not the subject. Piacere works differently in Italian than 'like' in English; you can't translate it word for word. You have to add "a" (in its proper form) to the article (le, la, etc) so it becomes 'to the X'; so la ragazza becomes (a + la = alla) alla ragazza. The chicken is not pleasing 'to the girl'.

As explained many times on this thread, the girl in this sentence is the object, not the subject. Piacere works differently in Italian than 'like' in English; you can't translate it word for word. You have to add "a" (in its proper form) to the article (le, la, etc) so it becomes 'to the X'; so la ragazza becomes (a + la = alla) alla ragazza. The chicken is not pleasing 'to the girl'.