Spanish is indeed a unique language and this fact is reflected in the way Spanish native speakers might have two or three different verbs when English just has one. This might be mind boggling for learners.
Here’s an example: The verb “(to) like”, which is so important to express our preferences and likes has two different equivalences in Spanish, each one with a totally different meaning. We’d better be careful about these
uses.
I remember one of my former students, Mike H. (the name has been changed) coming to Lima for a short visit. Although he had been learning Spanish for a short time, he was relatively fluent at his level.
One day, he was invited to a dinner party by a nice Peruvian female teacher (Nancy), so he was more than glad to be there. That night he was introduced to the host and the members of the host family. It was a very good opportunity for him, not only to enjoy the delicious Peruvian cuisine, but to practice his acquired Spanish as well. Dinner was good and Mike engaged into an interesting conversation with Pedro, Nancy’s brother, who happened to be a psychologyst, just like Mike.
After dinner was over, Nancy’s father asked Mike what he thought of the gathering and the people, so he happily said: “La comida estuvo deliciosa y Me gustó mucho Pedro”. All of the locals at the party gave him a rather suspicious look and there was an awkward silence. Mike did not understand what was going on. Some minutes later, I let him know.
In Spanish, when we like people because we think they are nice to us, we should say: “X me cae bien”. If we don`t like them because they’re not nice, we should say: “X me cae mal”.
If we say: “Me gusta Pedro” what we actually mean is “I feel (physically or even sexually) attracted to Pedro”. Such a difference, uh?
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