Verbs like “gustar” in Spanish – Learn and Practice

Welcome 😊 to our grammar lesson on other Spanish verbs like “gustar”.

In our lesson about “gustar”, we explained how this verb produces a particular sentence structure. We invite you to read that lesson first to fully understand this topic.

In the present lesson, we are simply going to review other verbs that work just like “gustar”, producing the same structure.

You will also find a Quiz and an Exercise to practice.

Identifying verbs like “gustar”

First of all, we need to understand that “gustar” doesn’t actually mean “to like”, but rather “to be pleasing”:

A mí me gusta el zumo de naranja.
Orange juice is pleasing to me.

“gustar” expresses a certain effect that something has on someone (“it is pleasing”).

We can think of other verbs that express different effects things have on people. For example:

• Something worries me.
• Something scares me.
• Something bothers me.
• Something makes me happy.
• etc.

In Spanish, all those verbs produce the same sentence structure as “gustar”.

List of verbs like “gustar”

Here is a list of common verbs like “gustar”. Notice that they all express the effect something has on someone:

Spanish	English
fascinar	to fascinate
encantar	to be very pleasing
entusiasmar	to delight, to thrill
interesar	to interest
apetecer	to feel like, to fancy
inspirar	to inspire
preocupar	to cause worry
dar miedo	to scare, to frighten
asustar	to scare, to frighten
aburrir	to bore
dar asco	to be repulsive
importar	to matter
sorprender	to surprise
impresionar	to impress
parecer	to seem
doler	to hurt, to be painful
picar	to itch
alegrar	to make happy
entristecer	to sadden
poner nervioso	to make nervous
ofender	to offend
costar	to be difficult
faltar	to be lacking/missing
hacer falta	to be necessary
molestar	to bother
fastidiar	to annoy

Example sentences

Let’s read some sentences with verbs from the list above:

fascinar (to fascinate):

A mí me fascina su personalidad.
His personality fascinates me.

As we explained in our lesson about “gustar”, we can remove “A mí” if we want to:

Me fascina su personalidad.

Or we can also change the word order:

Su personalidad me fascina.

preocupar (to worry):

A mí me preocupa esta situación.
This situation worries me.

interesar (to interest):

A mi padre le interesa la historia.
History interests my father.

dar miedo (to scare, to frighten):

A ella le dan miedo las arañas.
Spiders scare her.

aburrir (to bore):

A nosotros nos aburren estas películas.
These movies bore us.

Practice

Quiz

Take this short Quiz about verbs like “gustar”:

Exercise

Fill the gaps with the 2 words that are missing in each sentence. You need to use the verbs in brackets. Click on the gray spaces to see the solutions:

1) A mí me encanta leer. (encantar)
Reading pleases me a lot.

2) ¿A ti te importa la política? (importar)
Does politics matter to you?

3) A Carmen le duelen las piernas. (doler)
Carmen’s legs hurt.

4) A nosotros nos ofenden tus insultos. (ofender)
Your insults offend us.

5) A vosotros os alegra ganar. (alegrar)
Winning makes you guys happy.

6) A mis amigos les entusiasma el fútbol. (entusiasmar)
Football/soccer is thrilling to my friends.