Question 1

Why do we use piace instead of an "I" form if the sentence means "I like"?

Accepted Answer

The verb piacere works backwards compared to English. It actually means "to be pleasing." In Italian, you aren't doing the liking—the activity is doing the pleasing! Since the action of fishing (pescare) is treated as a single thing ("it"), we use the "it" form of the verb: piace.

Question 2

What exactly does the mi do in mi piace?

Accepted Answer

Mi is a pronoun meaning "to me." So instead of saying "I like to fish," Italians literally say "To fish is pleasing to me."

Question 3

Why isn't the verb pescare conjugated?

Accepted Answer

When you want to say you like doing an action, you use mi piace followed directly by the infinitive (the un-conjugated dictionary form) of the second verb. Here, keeping it as pescare translates to "to fish" or "fishing".

Question 4

Why do we say al mare instead of just a mare?

Accepted Answer

In Italian, you often have to combine a preposition like a (meaning "to" or "at") with the word for "the" (il). Since mare is a masculine singular noun, a plus il smashes together to make the combined word al (at the).

Mi piace pescare al mare.

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