Mi piace condire l’insalata di cetriolo con peperone, mais e olive.

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Breakdown of Mi piace condire l’insalata di cetriolo con peperone, mais e olive.

• di: of
• con: with
• e: and

Questions & Answers about Mi piace condire l’insalata di cetriolo con peperone, mais e olive.

Why is it mi piace and not io piace?

Because piacere works differently from English to like.

In Italian, the thing or action that is pleasing is the grammatical subject, and the person who likes it is expressed with an indirect object pronoun:

• mi = to me
• piace = is pleasing

So Mi piace condire l’insalata... literally means something like Seasoning the cucumber salad is pleasing to me.

That is why io piace is incorrect. Io means I, but with piacere, Italian does not structure the sentence like English I like....

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Why is it piace and not piacciono?

Because the thing being liked here is the action condire l’insalata di cetriolo con peperone, mais e olive.

An infinitive verb phrase like condire... is treated as singular, so Italian uses piace.

Compare:

• Mi piace condire l’insalata. = I like seasoning the salad.
• Mi piacciono le olive. = I like olives.

In the second sentence, le olive is plural, so you get piacciono.

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Why do we use the infinitive condire after mi piace?