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Le gusta mucho nadar.

Le gusta mucho nadar.
He likes to swim a lot.
From Lesson 50:Verbs of liking (me gusta)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Le gusta mucho nadar.

Why does the sentence start with le instead of él for 'he'?
Verbs like gustar work a bit differently in Spanish. Instead of saying 'He likes swimming,' the Spanish structure translates closer to 'Swimming is pleasing to him.' The word le is a pronoun that means 'to him' in this sentence.
Since le can mean 'to him', 'to her', or 'to you (formal)', how do we know it means 'he' here?
Looking at this sentence all by itself, we actually don't! Le gusta mucho nadar could mean 'He likes,' 'She likes,' or 'You like' to swim. We only know it means 'he' here because of the English translation provided. To make it clear in Spanish, you could add A él at the start: A él le gusta mucho nadar.
Why do we use the singular gusta instead of gustan?
With gustar, the thing being liked is the grammatical subject. Here, what is 'pleasing' is the action of swimming (nadar). Whenever you are talking about liking an action (a verb in its basic, un-conjugated form), you always use the singular gusta.
Could I put mucho at the end of the sentence instead?
Yes, you can! Both Le gusta mucho nadar and Le gusta nadar mucho are correct and sound very natural. Spanish is quite flexible with where you place words like mucho.

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