Lesson Transcript

Hello and welcome back to ItalianPod101. My name is Desy, and in this video, we're going to talk about something pleasant, which is the verb piacere in Italian.
Especially the expressions a me piace (mi piace) and me piace, which is…uncorrect. Let’s say it straightaway.
Piacere
(a me piace/mi piace)
Even though generally the verb piacere is translated as to like, the real meaning is to be pleasing to. So, for example:
A me piace la pizza.
Yes, it does mean "I like pizza" but that actually means that pizza is pleasing to me. And that's why we use a me and mi, because it’s the indirect object pronoun.
A me piace la pasta. "Pasta is pleasing to me."
A me.
And that’s why then it becomes a te:
A te piace la pasta? "Is pasta pleasing to you?"
Let’s go through the other pronouns together, as well, but first let me say that phrases like a me or mi are the same. Mi or A me piace is the same.
A me piace la pasta. = Mi piace la pasta.
But saying me piace la pasta is just not correct! Me piace, is something you may hear Rome’s area because it’s a dialect expression, ok? That’s completely fine if you want to speak the dialect, of course, and if you say that I still understand, even if I’m not from Rome, but it is just not correct. So, just stick to mi piace or a me piace. And when you hear me piace you know what it means but you also know that it is not correct, so don’t use that unless you are trying to impress someone from Rome or also sometimes you use it in an ironic way.
Ti piace la pasta.
It is for you, so "to you pasta is pleasing."
A te piace la pasta. Or Ti piace la pasta.
Let’s change and put something else instead of pasta from now on.
When we talk about her, someone, female…
A lei piace la musica. "She likes music." Music is pleasing to her.
If you go through this construction it is easy to understand why we say that by knowing that it may take longer for you to say that, so you can just learn the verb as it is.
Le piace la musica?
A lei piace la musica?
A lui piace il calcio.
Gli piace il calcio. "He likes football."
A noi piace andare al mare. "We like to go to the sea." Going to the sea is pleasing to us.
Ci piace andare al mare.
Here too, sometimes, I hear ce piace andare al mare or te piace: again, it’s uncorrect, it’s from a dialect from Rome. So, the proper expression would be ci piace.
Vi piace fare le torte. "You like baking cakes."
A voi piace fare le torte.
A loro piace studiare. "Studying is pleasing to them."
Lucky them! They like to study, basically.
In the spoken language, though, sometimes we just say gli piace something something even for them, for plural form, even though, grammatically speaking, it should just be a loro piace.
Also, when something that you like is plural, so not the pronoun but what you like is plural, for example I like books, books is plural, it is not mi piace i libri but:
Mi piacciono i libri.
Because the plural is the subject. So, "books are pleasing to me", and now you understand why it changes so much.
Mi piacciono i pasticcini. "I like pastries."
I hope you won’t have any doubts on what to use between me piace and mi piace from now on. Mi piace or me piace? Remember this face! And that the rest was useful too!
So, if you liked the video please like and subscribe and don’t forget to sign up on ItalianPod101.com for your free lifetime account. Thank you for watching!

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