Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga. - I would like to get to know your friend better.

In everyday English we say “I’d like to get to know your friend better”, so learners often think of quiero (I want).
Using quiero (Quiero conocer mejor a tu amiga) is stronger and more direct – closer to “I want to get to know your friend better”.
Me gustaría sounds more polite, softer, and more tentative, like English “I’d like to…” rather than “I want to…”.

Why is gustaría in the singular form? Isn’t the subject “I”?

With gustar, Spanish doesn’t treat “I” as the grammatical subject. Instead:

The thing that pleases you is the subject.
The person pleased is an indirect object (here, me).

In Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga, the subject is the whole action conocer mejor a tu amiga (to get to know your friend better), treated as a single idea.
Because it’s one action, gustaría is singular.
If the subject were plural things, you’d see plural forms, e.g., Me gustarían tus ideas (Your ideas would please me / I would like your ideas).

What exactly is the role of me in me gustaría? Can I drop it?

Me here is an indirect object pronoun meaning “to me”.
It tells us who would be pleased:

Me gustaría = It would please me / I would like
Te gustaría = It would please you / You would like
Le gustaría = It would please him/her / He/She would like

You cannot drop me in normal speech:
Gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga sounds incomplete and unnatural; we don’t know who would like it.
So me is essential to give the sentence a clear subject-like person.

Why is conocer used and not saber for “know / get to know”?

Spanish distinguishes two verbs that both translate as “to know” in English:

conocer: to be acquainted with people, places, or things; also to meet / get to know someone.
saber: to know facts, information, or how to do something.

Since the idea here is getting to know a person better, Spanish uses conocer.
Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga = I’d like to get to know your (female) friend better.
Using saber with a person (saber a tu amiga) is wrong in this sense.

What nuance does conocer mejor have? Could I say conocer bien instead?

Conocer mejor literally means “to know better”, indicating an improvement from your current level of familiarity.

conocer mejor = to know someone better than now, to get to know them more.
conocer bien = to know someone well (already), with a good, solid knowledge of them.

So:

Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga suggests you know her a bit (or not at all), and you’d like to know her more.
Me gustaría conocer bien a tu amiga sounds more like you want to end up knowing her really well, a stronger endpoint.

Both are grammatically correct; conocer mejor is a very natural way to talk about getting to know someone more.

Why is there an a before tu amiga?

The a here is the “personal a” in Spanish. It’s used before a direct object that is a specific person (or a beloved animal).

In this sentence:

Verb: conocer
Direct object: tu amiga (your friend, a specific person)
So Spanish requires a: conocer a tu amiga

Without a person, no a:

Quiero conocer la ciudad. = I want to get to know the city. (no personal a, because la ciudad is not a person)

So a tu amiga is obligatory when conocer directly takes a person as its object.

Could I say Me gustaría conocer mejor tu amiga without a, or is that wrong?

That is wrong in standard Spanish.
Because tu amiga is a specific person, you must use the personal a:

✅ Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga.
❌ Me gustaría conocer mejor tu amiga.

Leaving out the a sounds clearly ungrammatical to native speakers of Spanish from Spain.

Can I move mejor and say Me gustaría conocer a tu amiga mejor? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

✅ Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga.
✅ Me gustaría conocer a tu amiga mejor.

Both are grammatically correct and mean the same in practice: I’d like to get to know your friend better.
The difference is just slight emphasis:

conocer mejor a tu amiga slightly highlights the degree of knowing (better).
conocer a tu amiga mejor feels a bit more neutral, with focus on “your friend” as the object.

In everyday conversation, both word orders are fine and natural.

Could I say Me gustaría conocerla mejor instead of conocer mejor a tu amiga?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct if it’s clear from context who “her” refers to.

Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga.
Me gustaría conocerla mejor. (using la = her)

Here, la is a direct object pronoun that replaces a tu amiga:

conocer a tu amiga → conocerla

You typically use conocerla when “your friend” has already been mentioned, so you don’t need to repeat a tu amiga.
If you just say Me gustaría conocerla mejor with no context, the listener might ask “¿A quién?” (“Who?”).

How does Me gustaría conocer… compare in politeness to Quiero conocer…?

Both are correct, but the tone is different:

Quiero conocer mejor a tu amiga. = I want to get to know your friend better.
Very direct; can sound a bit blunt or strong, depending on context.
Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga. = I’d like to get to know your friend better.
Softer, more polite, more tentative, like English “I’d like to…” or “I would like to…”.

In Spanish (especially in Spain), using the conditional (gustaría, querría, quisiera) is a common way to be more polite and less pushy.

Does amiga always mean “female friend”? Could it also mean “girlfriend”?

Amiga literally means female friend (a friend who is a woman).
In most contexts in Spain:

amiga = female friend (non-romantic by default)
amigo = male friend or mixed-group friend
novia = girlfriend / fiancée
pareja = partner (gender-neutral, can be formal or serious relationship)

So tu amiga is naturally understood as “your (female) friend”, not automatically as “your girlfriend”.
Only context, tone, or previous information might give it a romantic or ambiguous reading.

Does this sentence sound romantic or flirty in Spanish, or is it neutral?

Me gustaría conocer mejor a tu amiga is not automatically romantic, but it can sound a bit suggestive depending on:

Tone of voice
Relationship between the speakers
Previous context

On its own, it can simply mean you’re curious and want to talk to her more or become better friends.
If you wanted to make romantic interest clearer, you might say something like:

Me atrae tu amiga y me gustaría conocerla mejor. (I’m attracted to your friend and I’d like to get to know her better.)

But the original sentence by itself is fairly neutral and context-dependent.

How do you pronounce gustaría, and why does it have an accent on í?

Gustaría is pronounced roughly: goos-tah-REE-ah (in Spain, g as in go, r tapped once).

Syllable breakdown: gus-ta-rí-a

In Spanish, words ending in a vowel, n, or s are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable.
Without the accent, gustaria would be stressed as gus-TA-ria.
The written accent on í ( gustaría ) tells you to stress that syllable instead: gus-ta-RÍ-a.
So the accent mark is there purely to signal the non-regular stress pattern.