Special Verbs: Piacere

The Italian verb, piacere, literally means to be pleasing. It is, however, better translated as to like. This verb has some special features and uses, which are detailed below.

1. Piacere is used with either an indirect object pronoun (pronomi personali indiretti atoni) or an emphasized subject pronoun (pronomi personali indiretti tonici). When the indirect object is a stated person, that person’s name or title must be preceded with the preposition a.
   
   

   Mi piace cucinare. A me piace cucinare. I like to cook. Vi piace questa casa? A voi piace questa casa? Do you like this house? A Matteo piace il cioccolato. Matteo likes chocolate. A mia madre piace leggere. My mom likes to read.

   
   NB: In contemporary, spoken Italian it is becoming common to hear A me mi piace... This is grammatically incorrect; you should use either a me or mi.
   
   
2. Piacere is used most frequently in the third person singular and plural. If the thing which is being liked is singular, the third person singular is used. If the thing which is being liked is plural, the third person plural is used. Actions take the third person singular form of the verb.
   
   

   Ci piacciono i tuoi amici. We like your friends. A loro piace viaggiare. They like to travel. Le piacciono i gialli. She likes crime novels. A lui piace mangiare presto. He likes to eat early. Gli piace giocare a tennis. They like to play tennis.

   
   NB: When referring to people, piacere usually indicates a physical attraction. To express that you like someone in not necessarily a physical manner, the expression essere simpatio/ca/ci/che a qualcuno is used.
   
   

   Luca è molto gentile; mi è simpatico. Luca is really kind; I like him. Carlo, tu mi piaci. Carlo, I [physically] like you.

   
   
3. To form the negative when using a pronome personale indiretto tonico, place non directly before the conjugated verb. When using a pronome personale indiretto atono, non comes before the whole verb phrase.
   
   

   A me non piace lavorare fino a tardi. Non mi piace lavorare fino a tardi. I don’t like working late. A lui non piacciono i cani. Non gli piacciono i cani. He doesn’t like dogs. A voi non piace nuotare? Non vi piace nuotare? You don’t like to swim?

   
   
4. In compound tenses, piacere is conjugated with essere. As a result, its past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject (the thing being liked). Following is a chart showing the past tenses of piacere (for the third person singular and plural) in both the imperfetto and the passato prossimo.
   
   

   	Singular	Plural
   Imperfetto	piaceva	piacevano
   Passato prossimo	è piaciuto/a	sono piaciuti/e

   
   

   Gli piaceva farmi visita. He used to like to visit me. Le è piaciuta molto la città. She really liked the city. A loro sono piaciuti i funghi porcini. They liked the porcini mushrooms.

   
   
5. Other verbs which function like piacere are as follows:
   
   

   bastare --> to be enough dispiacere --> to be sorry mancare --> to lack; to miss occorrere --> to need parere --> to look, to appear restare --> to have ... left sembrare --> to seem