Nombre:____________________
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Español I
INTERESAR - ABURRIR - GUSTAR
interesar: to interest
aburrir: to bore
gustar: to please
In English, sentences with these verbs use the following word order:
1
verb agreement!
WHAT interests, bores or
pleases someone
2
3
the form of the verb that
agrees with what interests,
bores or pleases someone
WHO is interested, bored or
pleased
In Spanish, sentences with these verbs use the opposite word order:
verb agreement!
3
2
WHO is interested, bored or
pleased
the form of the verb that
agrees with what interests,
bores or pleases someone
1
WHAT interests, bores or
pleases someone
Although the word order differs, in both English and Spanish the verb must agree with
WHAT interests, bores or pleases someone. WHO is interested, bored or pleased does not
affect the verb form! This means that in Spanish, the end of the sentences determines
the verb form, not the beginning!
Examples:
Hockey interests me.
Me interesa el hockey.
Sports bore me.
Me aburren los deportes.
Playing videogames pleases me.
Me gusta jugar los videojuegos.
The WHAT and the WHO
In Chapter 7, we are focusing on items, subjects, topics and activities. So at this point, we
only need to use the 3rd person singular and plural forms of the three verbs to express
WHAT interests, bores and pleases us.
yo
tú
él/ella/Ud.
*it-a singular object,
idea, place, etc.
intereso
aburro
gusto
interesas
aburres
gustas
interesamos
aburrimos
gustamos
interesa
aburre
gusta
interesan
ellos/ellas/Uds.
*they-plural objects,
aburren
places, ideas, etc.
gustan
nosotros
*Infinitives of verbs are always used with the 3rd person singular forms of interesar, aburrir and
gustar. This is true even when talking about more than one infinitive.
Examples: Me interesa esquiar.
Me aburre jugar los deportes.
Me gusta bailar y cantar.
In Spanish, we express WHO is interested, bored or pleased by using indirect object
pronouns:
me me
te you (inf.)
le him/her/you (form.)
nos us
les them/you all
Remember, even though the indirect object pronoun goes at the beginning of the sentence,
it does not affect the form of the verb. The form of the verb is always determined by
the WHAT, not the WHO!
Me interesa el hockey.
Nos interesa el hockey.
Te interesa el hockey.
A Juan y a Miguel, les interesa el hockey.
A ella, le interesa el hockey.
A Uds. les interesa el hockey