Verbs Like GUSTAR in Spanish - Learn and PRACTICE!

Welcome to our grammar lesson about other verbs like “gustar” in Spanish.

The verb “gustar”, which means “to be pleasing”, produces a particular grammar structure in Spanish.

We explain it in detail in our lesson about “gustar”. We invite you to read that lesson first to really understand this topic.

In the present lesson, we are simply going to review other Spanish verbs that produce the same sentence structure as “gustar”, and provide example sentences with them.

Two Spanish sentences with verbs like "gustar" — Two sentences with verbs like “gustar”

At the end you’ll find a Quiz and an Exercise for practice.

Contents

Identifying verbs like “gustar”
List of verbs like “gustar”
Example sentences
Practice
Related topics

Identifying verbs like “gustar”

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

Example:

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”).

Of course, 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 sentences 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

We will now read sentences including some of the verbs 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 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 to test your knowledge about verbs like “gustar”:

Exercise

Let’s practice with some sentences!

Fill the gaps with the 2 words that are missing in each sentence. You need to use the verb in brackets:

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

2) ¿A ti __ ___ la política? (importar)
Does politics matter to you?

3) A Carmen __ ___ las piernas. (doler)
Carmen’s legs hurt.

4) A nosotros __ ___ tus insultos. (ofender)
Your insults offend us.

5) A vosotros __ ___ ganar. (alegrar)
Winning makes you guys happy.

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

Solutions:
1) me encanta
2) te importa
3) le duelen
4) nos ofenden
5) os alegra
6) les entusiasma