Feelings inside out: me gusta, me molesta, me da vergüenza
English puts the person up front as the subject: 'I love coffee', 'I am embarrassed'. Spanish turns the sentence around: the subject becomes whatever causes the feeling, and the person retreats into an indirect pronoun. Me gusta el café is word-for-word 'coffee pleases me'. The mistake yo gusto would mean 'I am pleasing (to someone)'. For example: “A mí me irrita el ruido, pero a mi hermana le da igual” — Noise…
How it works
English puts the person up front as the subject: 'I love coffee', 'I am embarrassed'. Spanish turns the sentence around: the subject becomes whatever causes the feeling, and the person retreats into an indirect pronoun. Me gusta el café is word-for-word 'coffee pleases me'. The mistake yo gusto would mean 'I am pleasing (to someone)'.
The pronouns are the same for this whole family of verbs: me, te, le, nos, os, les. The verb agrees not with the person but with the thing: me gusta el libro — one thing, me gustan los libros — many. The most common learner's mistake follows straight from this: me gusta where the thing is plural.
A whole brood of feeling verbs works on this scheme: molestar (to bother), irritar (to irritate), encantar (to delight), apetecer (to fancy), doler (to hurt), interesar, preocupar, dar pena, dar vergüenza, dar rabia. The last ones are built with dar: me da vergüenza, me da pena, me da igual. English flips the same way with 'it annoys me', 'it worries me' — Spanish simply does it far more often.
To stress who is meant, a mí, a ti, a él are added in front: a mí me da igual, pero a ella le molesta. This is not a duplication and not an error — it is how Spanish highlights the person, because the bare pronoun carries no stress of its own.
And the third part: after an expression of feeling the que-clause goes into subjuntivo. Me alegro de que estés aquí, me molesta que llegue tarde, me da pena que se vayan. Same logic as quiero que vengas: the speaker's feeling is not a report of fact, and Spanish marks it with the verb form.
Table
| in English | in Spanish | what is the subject |
|---|---|---|
| I like this song | me gusta esta canción | the song |
| I like these songs | me gustan estas canciones | the songs |
| the noise annoys me | me irrita el ruido | the noise |
| I fancy a coffee | me apetece un café | the coffee |
| I'm embarrassed | me da vergüenza | no subject — dummy 'it' |
| I feel sorry for them | me dan pena | they |
| it makes me angry that he's late | me da rabia que llegue tarde | the clause, subjuntivo |
By example
- A mí me irrita el ruido, pero a mi hermana le da igualNoise irritates me, but my sister couldn't care less
- Me da vergüenza preguntar otra vezI am embarrassed to ask again
- Me alegro de que hayáis hecho las pacesI'm glad you have made up
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Feelings inside out: how does it work in Spanish?
English puts the person up front as the subject: 'I love coffee', 'I am embarrassed'. Spanish turns the sentence around: the subject becomes whatever causes the feeling, and the person retreats into an indirect pronoun. Me gusta el café is word-for-word 'coffee pleases me'. The mistake yo gusto…
What does it look like in an example sentence Spanish?
“A mí me irrita el ruido, pero a mi hermana le da igual” — Noise irritates me, but my sister couldn't care less. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.