Poner la lavadora - No me gusta nada
 

So I have a clip of a woman putting clothes in a washing machine and she says:


"Estoy poniendo la lavadora. ¡No me gusta nada!"


I'm a bit confused by both sentences. In the first, it reads like "I'm putting the washing machine". I know that "poner" can mean a variety of things but I'm not sure what it means here. I would imagine it means "putting clothes in.." but is it okay to just leave out the phrase "la ropa en". I suppose that would make sense, since it's clear from the clip that's what she's doing. I'm just not sure that's what's going on.


The second sentence seems to mean "I don't like anything", when I would expect "I don't like it" ("No me lo gusta"). Is this maybe like saying "I don't like it at all"?

poner la lavadora = do the laundry
The first sentence is translated "I'm doing the laundry."

The second sentence is translated "I don't like it at all," but that isn't the only thing this sentence can mean (as you stated).

(I've heard a lot of native speakers use «¡No me gusta para nada!» to mean "I don't like it at all!" But grammarians will tell you that's incorrect. In Spain, you'll hear it said, «¡No me gusta en absoluto!», which is an adverb.)

The really important thing you might have missed is that nada can be pronoun (meaning 'nothing' or 'anything' in translation) or an adverb. (It can also be a noun, if preceded by an article.)

If you don't like anything, it's correct to say «No me gusta nada.» Here, nada is a pronoun.

When the lady said her sentence, however, she was using nada as an adverb, describing how much she doesn't like doing the laundry.
If she thought for one moment that whomever she was talking to wouldn't know what she meant, she could have made the sentence more clear by saying «No me gusta nada poner la lavadora.»


«No me lo gusta» is an improper way to say "I don't like it."
gustar(le) algo a alguien
The subject of the phrase correlates to 'algo'. The subject can precede the verb or it can follow it, as in the model above. When the subject is 'it', it isn't said in Spanish (and 'lo' can never be used as a subject pronoun).

The proper way to say "I don't like it" is «No me gusta.»
If there's no referent (your listener doesn't know what you're referring to), you can provide the subject. If the subject is an idea, or an action, state the idea or action using an infinitive, and the subject's object can be a suffixed pronoun (if it has already been established). If it's not already established or understood, it needs to be stated.
«No me gusta poner la lavadora.» = «No me gusta ponerla.»

I agree with Rusty.

I will just add:
"Poner" when you are talking about a machine, means that you are making the machine work. Obviously, in context, you wouldn't make the washing machine work without any clothes in, so it's understood you're loading it to make it work. :)
We can say: "poner la cafetera", "poner la radio", "poner la tele(visión)"...

As for "no me gusta nada", this is why context is important. Without any context, the sentence would mean "I don't like anything", but here, it means "I don't like anything about doing this chore". :D