Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly use “piacere” and similar verbs to express likes, dislikes, and interests.

Lesson Explanation

Piacere (to like) works exactly like Spanish’s gustar (covered in an earlier-built Gabal course) — it does not literally mean “to like” but rather “to be pleasing to”: Mi piace il libro. (I like the book — literally “to-me is-pleasing the book.”) Mi piacciono i libri. (I like the books — plural subject, plural verb.)

Piacere conjugates to agree with the THING liked, appearing mainly in two forms: piace (singular) and piacciono (plural). The “liker” uses indirect object pronouns from Part 2, Lesson 3: Mi piace, Ti piace, Gli piace, Le piace, Ci piace, Vi piace.

When the thing liked is an infinitive/action, piacere stays singular: Mi piace ballare. (I like to dance.)

A genuinely important detail carrying over from Part 3, Lesson 2: piacere uses essere as its passato prossimo auxiliary, and its past participle agrees with the thing liked, not the person: Mi è piaciuto il libro. (I liked the book.) Mi sono piaciuti i libri. (I liked the books — plural agreement.) Other verbs following this same backwards pattern: interessare, dispiacere, servire, mancare (to interest, be sorry/mind, be needed, be missed): Mi manchi. (I miss you — literally “you are missing to me,” identical in logic to Spanish’s inverted idioms.)

Practice Questions