Questions & Answers about Les gusta ir al cine.
Why do we use Les here instead of a subject word like Ellos?
In Spanish, verbs like gustar work backwards compared to English. Instead of saying that they like going, the Spanish phrasing is closer to 'Going to the cinema is pleasing to them.' Les is the pronoun that means 'to them'. If Les refers to a plural group (them), why is the verb gusta singular?
With gustar, the verb matches the thing that is liked, not the people who like it. Here, the thing being liked is an action: ir (to go). Whenever you like doing an action, you always use the singular gusta. Could this sentence also mean 'You all like to go to the cinema'?
Yes! Les can mean 'to them' or 'to you all' (when speaking formally using ustedes). Without extra context, it could be either. To be perfectly clear, a speaker might add A ellos or A ustedes at the very beginning of the sentence. Why does the sentence say al cine instead of a el cine?
In Spanish, whenever the word a (to) comes directly before el (the masculine word for 'the'), they combine to form the single word al. This is a mandatory spelling rule, so writing a el cine is always incorrect. Learn Les gusta ir al cine and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free