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Puzzling grammar

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rpieket
February 05, 2016, 11:07 AM
Hi-

I'm working may way through Fluenz Spanish (Latin America) Me gusta mucho. But in session 30 of level 4, I find the following:

Hola Isabella, ¿cómo estás? ¿Te está gustando tu viaje?

What I can't figure out is why "está" and not "estás" in the second phrase. But it is both written and spoken "está", both in the dialogue as well as in the tutorial - four times in total. So it seems unlikely to be a typo. What am I missing?

Muchas gracias,

-Ron.

Rusty
February 05, 2016, 12:43 PM
The subject is 'viaje', which takes a third-person conjugation. 'Te' is the indirect object pronoun.

In English we would say 'Are you liking your trip?' 'You' is the subject in English and 'trip' is the direct object. But that construct doesn't work when the Spanish verb is 'gustar'. The transliterated equivalent is 'Your trip (subject) is pleasing (verb) to you (indirect object)?'

Welcome to the forums, by the way.

rpieket
February 05, 2016, 01:29 PM
Oh wow. I had completely missed that subtlety of gustar. It makes sense now.

Thank you for your explanation.

-Ron.

Rusty
February 05, 2016, 01:39 PM
You're quite welcome.