Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas cuando llegan de viaje. - We like to hug our friends when they arrive from a trip.

Nos gusta abrazar… = “Hugging… is pleasing to us” → We like hugging…
The subject here is the action abrazar a nuestras amigas, which is treated as singular, so the verb must be gusta (3rd person singular).
Nos is not the subject; it’s the indirect object pronoun (“to us”).

Gustamos would mean “we are pleasing” (to someone), which is not the idea here.

What exactly does nos do in nos gusta?

Nos is the indirect object pronoun for “to us”.

Nos gusta… = “… is pleasing to us” → We like…
It answers the question: “To whom is it pleasing?” → A nosotros / A nosotras → nos.

You can make it explicit:

A nosotros nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas.
A nosotras nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas. (if the “we” group is all female)

The a nosotros / a nosotras part is optional and just adds emphasis or contrast; nos is required.

Why is abrazar in the infinitive form?

After gustar, when you talk about liking an activity, Spanish uses the infinitive:

Nos gusta abrazar… = We like to hug / We like hugging…
Structure: [indirect object pronoun] + gusta + infinitive (activity)

More examples:

Me gusta leer. – I like reading / to read.
Les gusta bailar. – They like dancing / to dance.

So abrazar stays in the infinitive because it is the activity that “is pleasing” to us.

Why do we need a before nuestras amigas?

That a is the personal “a”, used before a direct object that is a specific person or people:

Abrazar a nuestras amigas – to hug our (female) friends.

In Spanish, when the direct object is a person or a very “person-like” animal and it is specific, you usually add a:

Veo a María. – I see María.
Escuchamos a nuestros amigos. – We listen to our friends.

Without a, nuestras amigas would sound ungrammatical in this position; with abrazar, we naturally say abrazar a alguien.

Why is it nuestras amigas and not just amigas?

Spanish tends to use a possessive where English can often omit “our/their” with body parts and close relationships, but here it’s also about clarity:

abrazar a nuestras amigas – hug our friends (clear whose friends).
abrazar a amigas – sounds wrong / incomplete; you need an article or a determiner.
abrazar a las amigas – hug the (female) friends (already known from context, but not clearly “ours”).

So nuestras clarifies ownership and also fills the place that in Spanish normally needs some determiner (article or possessive).

Why is it amigas (feminine plural)? What if there are men in the group?

Amigas is the feminine plural, so the sentence is talking about a group of female friends only.

All women: amigas
All men, or mixed men + women: amigos

So if the group included men, you would say:

Nos gusta abrazar a nuestros amigos cuando llegan de viaje.

Spanish grammatical gender uses the masculine plural (amigos) as the default for mixed groups.

Why is llegan in the present tense if we’re talking about something that happens after a trip?

The present tense here expresses a habitual action:

cuando llegan de viaje = when(ever) they arrive back from a trip

It describes what usually happens each time they arrive from a trip, not a single, specific past event. English also often uses the present for this:

We like to hug our friends when they arrive back from trips.

If you were narrating a single past event, you might say, for example:

Nos gustó abrazar a nuestras amigas cuando llegaron de viaje.
(We liked hugging our friends when they arrived from a trip – one specific time.)

What does de viaje add to llegan? Is it “from the trip” or “after travelling”?

De viaje literally means “on a trip / travelling”, and with llegar it means they are arriving back from a trip.

llegan de viaje ≈ they arrive (home) from a trip / after travelling.

Roughly:

llegar de viaje – to arrive from a trip.
You could also say llegar de un viaje, but de viaje is very common and idiomatic.

So the phrase focuses both on the arrival (llegan) and the fact they’ve been away travelling (de viaje).

What’s the difference between llegan de viaje, vuelven de viaje, and vienen de viaje?

All are possible, but the nuance changes:

llegan de viaje – they arrive from a trip. Focus: the physical arrival.
vuelven de viaje – they return / come back from a trip. Focus: being back where they belong (home, usual place).
vienen de viaje – they come (here) from a trip. Focus: they are coming to the speaker’s location after travelling.

Your sentence with llegan de viaje sounds very natural: it highlights that when they arrive back from travelling, that’s when the hugging happens.

Could we say Nos gusta abrazarnos cuando llegan de viaje instead?

That would change the meaning.

Nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas – We like to hug our (female) friends.
Nos gusta abrazarnos – We like to hug each other (the “we” group among ourselves).

Abrazarnos is reflexive/reciprocal: nos here means we hug ourselves / each other, not “to us”.

In the original sentence, nos is an indirect object pronoun with gustar (“to us”), and nuestras amigas are a separate group that we hug. In nos gusta abrazarnos, we would be both the ones who like and the ones being hugged.

Can I move parts of the sentence around, like putting cuando llegan de viaje first?

Yes, some word order changes are natural, others sound strange. These are fine:

Nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas cuando llegan de viaje.
Cuando llegan de viaje, nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas.

Both are normal.

But you should generally keep the infinitive phrase together after gusta. This sounds unnatural:

✗ Nos gusta cuando llegan de viaje abrazar a nuestras amigas.

Better to keep it as in the original or with the time clause at the beginning.

How would the sentence change for “She likes” or “They like”?

You mainly change the indirect object pronoun and usually the possessive:

She likes to hug her (female) friends when they arrive from a trip.
- Le gusta abrazar a sus amigas cuando llegan de viaje.
They like to hug their (female) friends when they arrive from a trip.
- Les gusta abrazar a sus amigas cuando llegan de viaje.

Notes:

Le = to him / to her / to usted.
Les = to them / to ustedes.
Sus = his / her / their / your (formal), depending on context.

Can I say A nosotras nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas? When would I use nosotros vs nosotras?

Yes, you can, and in Spain it’s common to mark feminine groups clearly:

A nosotros nos gusta… – when the “we” group is all male or mixed.
A nosotras nos gusta… – when the “we” group is all female.

So, for a group of only women, in Spain you might say:

A nosotras nos gusta abrazar a nuestras amigas cuando llegan de viaje.

The a nosotros / a nosotras part is still optional; it’s used for emphasis, contrast, or clarity about who “we” are.