Liking to do something
I like to cook.
Left column: the order of the concepts, as chips — the slots you fill (who, action, thing, when) and the fixed words the language adds (a modal, a negator, a question marker). Click a slot, here or in the bar above, to choose what goes in it. Right column: the sentence those concepts make, the other orders the language allows, and the other ways to say it — each with what it changes. The rows are the languages switched on at the top of the page.
Try:
| Language | The order of the concepts | The sentence, other orders, other ways to say it |
|---|---|---|
| EnglishEnglish | like to modal 'like' takes either 'to' + verb or the -ing form. It is the subject who likes — unlike Spanish, where the activity pleases the person. | I like to fix the lamp. Other ways to say it I like fixing the lamp. neutral 'I like cooking' is the pleasure of the activity; 'I like to cook' leans toward habit — what you choose to do. In practice they overlap. I enjoy fixing the lamp. neutral the pleasure while you are doing it — and 'enjoy' never takes 'to'. |
| FrançaisFrench | aime modal aimer + infinitive, no preposition: j’aime cuisiner. aimer also means 'to love' a person — with an activity it is 'like'. | J’aime réparer la lampe. Other ways to say it J’adore réparer la lampe. casual j’adore — stronger, and very common in speech: 'I love to'. |
| EspañolSpanish | me modalgusta modal Main because it is the only everyday way: Spanish has no verb for 'to like' with the liker as subject. Me gusta cocinar is 'cooking pleases me' — the person is a dative (me, le, nos, les) and gusta agrees with the activity, which is singular, so it stays gusta whoever likes it. A noun: a mi hermano le gusta, with both the a-phrase and le. | Me gusta arreglar la lámpara. Other ways to say it Me encanta arreglar la lámpara. neutral “it enchants me” me encanta — stronger, and very common in speech: 'I love to'. |
Hover a word to see which concept it fills. The verb is always in its dictionary form: every pattern here is built on a modal, which carries the person and the tense, so any verb stays grammatical in every language. Where the modal is an ending (Korean, Japanese, Hindi's 'can'), the stem is computed. What this cannot show is agreement beyond the modal — adjectives, plural objects — which the grammar chapters cover.
For the same idea said at three levels of politeness, see Compare.