Me gusta el rock.

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Breakdown of Me gusta el rock.

• gustar: to like
• el rock: the rock

Questions & Answers about Me gusta el rock.

Why is it me gusta and not yo gusto el rock?

In Spanish, gustar doesn’t work like to like in English.
Literally, me gusta el rock means “rock pleases me”, not “I like rock.”

• el rock is the grammatical subject (the thing doing the pleasing)
• me is an indirect object pronoun (the person who is pleased)
• gusta agrees with el rock (third person singular)

So yo gusto el rock would sound wrong to native speakers. You almost never use gustar like to like with a normal subject-verb-object order.

What exactly does me mean in me gusta el rock?

me is an indirect object pronoun meaning “to me” or “for me.”

• me gusta el rock → “rock is pleasing to me”
• te gusta el rock → “rock is pleasing to you” (informal singular)
• le gusta el rock → “rock is pleasing to him/her/you-formal”

So me tells you who likes it, even though grammatically it’s “who is pleased by it.”

Is rock the subject or the object in this sentence?