Learn Gustar With Luis Fonsi

Not sure about all but quite a few rookie learners have often had a particularly tough time understanding the Spanish verb, gustar, which roughly – only roughly – stands for, “to like”. Well, knowing how to use gustar is no rocket-science and certainly not the hardest aspect of learning Spanish. The hard part is recalling the usage while actually conversing in Spanish. One song by Luis Fonsi appears to have been crafted specifically to address this problem. That’s the thing with Spanish music – it can do much more than just put you on the dance floor. It can simplify linguistic concepts enough to keep you in the groove!

Me gustas!
Photo credit: Yukari* licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

The pain with liking something

It can be a nagging pain in the neck for the average English speaker to understand that while we say, “I like cats,” in English (the straightforward way), we can’t do the same in Spanish where the correct order would be, “Cats please me.”

Well, the problem is that gustar, contrary to most dictionaries and grammar books, does not exactly translate into “like”. It, instead, stands for something similar in sense but slightly different in usage – “to please”. The effect is a swap in the word order and that’s why, “I like cats” becomes, “Cats please me”.

While this is a simple enough explanation, human minds always welcome any amount of musical illustration in order to reinforce such explanations. And while there might not always be a song meant for every grammar point that exists, at least for gustar, there is. We would recommend this song to anyone who is struggling with likes and dislikes in Spanish, not to forget, it’s quite a jingle too! With 17 occurances of this verb in its present indicative first and second person singular conjugations, you can’t go wrong.

Luis Fonsi

Luis Alfonso Rodríguez López-Cepero, better known as Luis Fonsi, is a Grammy winning singer and composer from Puerto Rico. As a child, his family moved to Orlando where he has been ever since. Fonsi’s affinity with music goes back a long way when he was ten and dreamed of singing with the Latin American boy band, Menudo.

Eventually, Fonsi went on to study music at the Florida State University, join the school’s choir, and sing with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and realize his childhood dream when, in 2005, He was invited to sing at a concert with Ray Reyes, a former Menudo member. This concert was widely labeled by the press (El Vocero, a free Spanish-language newspaper published in San Juan, Puerto Rico) as “Fonsi’s moment as a Menudo”.

Me Gustas Tú

Though Fonsi has to his credit quite a few compositions, it is Me Gustas Tú (I like you) that this article is interested in right now. He composed this number for his album Tierra Firme (Hard Ground) that released in the summer of 2011. While not necessarily a groundbreaking masterpiece, this song uses gustar enough number of times to be immensely important to anyone learning Spanish.

Here’s a portion of the lyrics along with the English translation for you to jump-start your educational listening. We are dissecting only the first 3 stanzas for your reference here but if you really want the complete translation, which we strictly advice against (jog your brains a bit if you wish to truly learn; trust me, it’s fun), there are tons of sites offering the lyrics and translations to this song and many others.

Please note that what’s being provided here is not an absolute literal translation because often, phrases in one language don’t have a literal equivalent in another that conveys the sense precisely as intended. Moreover, one must not strive for literal translations when it comes to songs and poetry anyways.

Me gusta el mar (I like the sea)

porque si lo veo (because if I see it)

pareciera que a veces (it appears that at times)

llega hasta el cielo (it stretches until the sky).

Me gusta soñar (I like dreaming)

con cosas que pueda alcanzar (of things that can reach)

como el viento que me da tu pelo (like the wind that gives me your hair).

Me gusta cantar (I love singing)

no me importa si lo hago bien (doesn’t matter if I do it well)

lo hago mal, lo hago con sentimiento (I do it badly, I do it with emotion)

yo no soy muy así (I am not much like that)

pero algo me pasa contigo (but something happens to me with you)

que me hace gritar lo que siento (that makes me shout what I feel).

The key to productive listening lies in the reps!

No amount of lyrics or translation can convey the essence of this song, or any for that matter, as beautifully as listening to it will. So, do scour through Youtube® for a video of this song and watch it in endless loops once you’re done reading this. Just make sure you loop through the video over and over again several times. The key is in the reps; repeat until you find yourself humming along to its tunes or, even better, singing it off your head in the shower. That's when you can say you have truly assimilated the lyrics and, in turn, the associated vocabulary and grammar. Actually, it is only at this stage when you should consider looking up the translated lyrics. Hasta luego!