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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.
- We like music.
- 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 in 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.
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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?)