Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Me gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con mi familia. - I like to walk through the quiet countryside with my family.

“gusta” is the verb form that agrees with what pleases (here, caminar = walking).
“me” is an indirect object pronoun, meaning “to me”.

So instead of saying “I like walking”, Spanish says “Walking pleases me”:

Me gusta caminar. = [To me] it is pleasing to walk.

You do not usually say “yo gusto caminar”. That would sound like “I please to walk,” which is wrong in Spanish.

Why is it “gusta” (singular) and not “gustan” in this sentence?

Use gusta when what you like is one thing or an activity (an infinitive verb).
Use gustan when what you like is plural nouns.

In the sentence:

Me gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con mi familia.
The “thing” that is pleasing is the activity: caminar (to walk).

An infinitive (caminar) counts as one single activity, so you use:

me gusta (not me gustan).

Examples:

Me gusta caminar. – I like walking. (one activity)
Me gusta el campo. – I like the countryside. (one noun)
Me gustan los campos. – I like the fields. (plural noun)

What exactly does the “me” in “me gusta” mean, and can it change?

Yes, it changes depending on who likes something. It’s an indirect object pronoun, meaning “to me / to you / to him…”.

me gusta = it pleases me / I like
te gusta = it pleases you (informal) / you like
le gusta = it pleases him / her / you (formal) / he-she-you like(s)
nos gusta = it pleases us / we like
les gusta = it pleases them / you all / they-you all like

Same sentence with different people:

Te gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con tu familia.
You like walking in the quiet countryside with your family.
Les gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con su familia.
They like walking in the quiet countryside with their family.

Why is it “caminar” and not “camino” after “me gusta”?

After gustar, when you talk about liking an activity, you must use the infinitive (the “to _” form):

Me gusta caminar. – I like to walk / walking.
Not: Me gusta camino. (incorrect)

This is a general rule:

Me gusta leer. – I like reading.
Me gusta bailar. – I like dancing.
Nos gusta cantar. – We like singing.

Using “camino” (I walk) would make it a normal present-tense sentence, not a structure with gustar, and it simply doesn’t fit here.

What does “por” mean in “por el campo”, and how is it different from “en”?

Here, por roughly means “through / around / along” and emphasizes movement through a space.

caminar por el campo
= to walk through / around / across the countryside.

If you say:

caminar en el campo
= to walk in the countryside (more static: you are located there, not necessarily moving around it).

In practice:

por el campo: suggests you move through or wander around the countryside.
en el campo: focuses more on the location of the walking (the countryside) rather than movement across it.

Both can be correct, but “por el campo” is very natural for “walking around in the countryside.”

What exactly does “el campo” mean in Latin American Spanish?

In Latin America, el campo usually means “the countryside / rural areas / farmland”, not just a single “field.”

It can include:

Rural villages
Farms, ranches
Open natural areas away from the city

So caminar por el campo is often understood as:

walking out in the country, away from the city, in nature or farmland.

For “a field” in a more literal sense, you might also hear un campo, una cancha (sports field), or un terreno, depending on context.

Why is it “campo tranquilo” and not “tranquilo campo”?

In Spanish, adjectives usually come after the noun:

el campo tranquilo – the quiet countryside
una casa grande – a big house
un perro negro – a black dog

Putting the adjective before the noun can be:

Unusual or poetic:
- el tranquilo campo sounds literary or poetic, not like everyday speech.
Sometimes changes the nuance or meaning (with certain adjectives), but with tranquilo here, it just sounds stylistically marked.

So, in normal, neutral language, you say:

el campo tranquilo, not el tranquilo campo.

Why is it “tranquilo” (masculine, singular) and not “tranquila” or “tranquilos”?

Adjectives in Spanish must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

campo is masculine singular → el campo.
So the adjective must also be masculine singular → tranquilo.

Patterns:

Masculine singular: campo tranquilo
Feminine singular: casa tranquila
Masculine plural: campos tranquilos
Feminine plural: casas tranquilas

The countryside itself is not “male” or “female” in a real-world sense; it’s just the grammatical gender of the word campo.

Why is it “mi familia” and not “mis familia”, even though a family has many people?

Possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su, nuestro…) agree with the grammatical number of the noun, not with how many people it refers to in reality.

familia is a singular noun → use mi (my).
If the noun is plural, you use mis.

So:

mi familia – my family (one group)
mis familias – my families (more than one family)

Similarly:

mi amigo – my friend (singular)
mis amigos – my friends (plural)

Could I move “con mi familia” to another place in the sentence?

Yes. Spanish word order is fairly flexible for phrases like con mi familia, as long as it stays clear.

All of these are possible:

Me gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con mi familia.
Me gusta, con mi familia, caminar por el campo tranquilo. (more marked/emphasized)
Con mi familia, me gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo.
Me gusta caminar, con mi familia, por el campo tranquilo.

The most neutral and natural version is the original one, with con mi familia at the end. Moving it changes the emphasis slightly, but not the basic meaning.

How would I emphasize “I” in “I like walking…”, like saying “I like it”?

To add emphasis on “I”, Spanish often uses a prepositional phrase with “a”:

A mí me gusta caminar por el campo tranquilo con mi familia.

This literally means:

As for me, it pleases me to walk…

You can do this with other persons too:

A ti te gusta… – You like…
A él le gusta… – He likes…
A nosotros nos gusta… – We like…

The “a + pronoun” part is optional and used mainly for clarity or emphasis.