A comon mistake for Spanish Learners to use Gustar in Spanish

Hive account: @aljif7 Category: Education

Date: 4/Dec/2025

The Confusion Everyone Has Even Advanced Learners!

In this post I am sharing a recent kind of mistakes I saw in students for IGCSE/IB Spanish.

🔍 The Confusion Everyone Has Even Advanced Learners! If you’ve ever caught yourself saying something like:

❌ Me encanta visité la India,

…you’re not alone. This is one of the most common mistakes I see — even among Year 12 and 13 students.

And the fix? Simpler than you think.

Today, let’s clear up how to correctly use gustar-type verbs gustar, encantar, fascinar, etc. when they’re followed by another verb.

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✅ The Golden Rule

Once you have a conjugated verb, the next one stays in the infinitive.

Verbs like gustar don’t work like regular English verbs “I like” . Instead, they describe what is pleasing or fascinating — and that “what” is usually a thing, a concept, or an activity expressed as an infinitive .

So when you talk about liking to do something, the structure is always:

Indirect object pronoun + gusta/encanta/fascina + infinitive

Examples:

Me gusta leer.

Le encanta cocinar.

Nos fascina viajar.

💡 Notice: It’s always gusta, never gustan, when followed by an infinitive — because the activity itself is treated as a singular idea.

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🧩 Pronouns & Agreement: A Quick Refresher These verbs require an indirect object pronoun to show who is experiencing the feeling:

Press enter or click to view image in full size

And remember: the verb gusta vs. gustan agrees with the subject that comes after it— not the person who likes it.

Me gusta el cine. singular subject → gusta

Me gustan las películas. plural subject → gustan

Pero: Me gusta ver películas. infinitive = singular concept → always gusta

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📝 Real Student Example: What Went Wrong? During a recent class exercise, a student Answered:

❌ “Me encanta visité la India.”

The prompt was: “¿A dónde fuiste el verano pasado?”

Here’s the issue:

“Visité” is past tense conjugated .

But after “Me encanta…”, you cannot use a conjugated verb. So how do you fix it? Option 1: Talk about the past experience

✅ “El verano pasado visité la India.”

Option 2: Express a general love for the activity

✅ “Me encanta visitar la India.”

Option 3: Say both but in two sentences!

✅ “Me encanta visitar la India. El verano pasado, la visité.”

You can’t mix tenses in one clause with gustar-type verbs — because the verb itself isn’t yours to conjugate. It belongs to the thing you like!

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💬 Final Thought Mastering gustar isn’t just about memorizing rules — it’s about shifting your mindset from “I like” to “It pleases me.” Once that clicks, everything else falls into place.

And if you’re still unsure? Try this test:

Can I replace the verb with “to verb ”?

→ “I love to visit India” → ✅ Use infinitive!

→ “I visited India” → ✅ That’s a full sentence on its own.

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🙏 Thanks for Reading! I write these posts to help students and self-learners! avoid the same pitfalls I’ve seen in our oral practice. If this helped you, clap, comment, or share it with someone who’s learning Spanish!

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¡Hasta la próxima! 🌟