The Italian verb "piacere" (to like)

In Italian to talk about things we like we use the verb piacere that translates the English verb to like. This verb however is not used in the same way as the English verb. You can better understand the difference with an example. In Italian to translate the phrase "We like music" we say "Ci piace la musica", that literally means "Music pleases to us".

While in English there is an active subject who likes something or someone (direct object), in Italian the subject becomes the indirect object of the sentence. This means that the subject (a person, thing, or activity) is pleasing TO someone (= indirect object).

The verb piacere is used at the 3rd person singular or plural and has two form: piace and piacciono.

PIACE: it is used with singular nouns or with a verb in the infinitive form.
PIACCIONO: it is used with plural nouns.


If you use the personal indirect pronouns called “atoni” (MI, TI, GLI, LE, CI, VI, GLI) you can't use the pronouns “tonici” (A ME, A TE, A LUI, A LEI, A NOI, A VOI, A LORO). So the sentence “A me mi piace la pizza”, that it's common to hear in spoken Italian, is not grammatically correct. In this case, we should say:

  • Mi piace la pizza. (I like pizza)
or
  • A me piace la pizza. (I like pizza)

 To form a negative sentence with an atono pronoun, we must put the negation non before the pronoun. Otherwise we put non before the verb.
  • Non ci piace viaggiare. (We don't like travelling)
  • A noi non piace viaggiare. (We don't like travelling)

Some examples with the verb “piacere”:
  • Le piace viaggiare. (She likes travelling)
  • A Marco piace il cioccolato. (Marco likes chocolate)
  • Ci piacciono le canzoni italiane. (We like Italian songs)
  • Ti piacciono gli spaghetti? (Do you like spaghetti?)

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