Learn Italian: Le piacciono i cavalli, ma ha paura dei serpenti. - She likes horses, but she is afraid of snakes.

Le piacciono i cavalli, ma ha paura dei serpenti.

She likes horses, but she is afraid of snakes.

Breakdown of Le piacciono i cavalli, ma ha paura dei serpenti.

Questions & Answers about Le piacciono i cavalli, ma ha paura dei serpenti.

Why is it piacciono and not piace here?

In Italian, the thing you like is actually the subject of the sentence doing the "pleasing." Since she likes horses (a plural noun), the verb must be the plural piacciono (are pleasing). If she liked just one horse, it would be Le piace il cavallo.

I thought le meant "the" (plural feminine). Why does it mean "she" here?

You are right that le is the feminine plural "the" (like in le ragazze). But here, it is a pronoun meaning "to her". With verbs like piacere, we literally say "To her, horses are pleasing," so we use le. If it were a man liking horses, we would use gli (to him).

Why is there an i before cavalli? In English we just say "She likes horses," not "She likes the horses."

In Italian, when you talk about a general category or everything in a group (like all horses or all snakes), you almost always use a definite article (il, la, i, le). So "horses" in general must be translated as i cavalli.

Why does the sentence use ha paura instead of the verb "to be" for "is afraid"?