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I have the following sentence in English

Do your children like to read?

Which translates to Spanish:

¿ A vuestros hijos les gusta leer?

To me it is unclear, why I have to use "A vuestros" in this case. Which grammatical rule is active here and are there other cases this rule applies as well?

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  • I found another example which might fall into the same category: "Todos los padres quieren a sus hijos."
    – Besi
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 22:30
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    In that example, it's just a personal 'a', and has no English translation.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 22:42
  • In my opinion the answer you are looking for is this personal a mentioned by Flimzy and Arthaey.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 23:09

2 Answers 2

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Remember that "gustar" means "to please" unlike the English "like" which essentially means "to be pleased by." So what you're saying is:

Is reading pleasing to your children?

When you state it this way, the obvious translation becomes:

¿Leer les gusta a vuestros hijos?

And then the necesity of the 'a' becomes more clear, as in this case it is a translation of the English "to."

An alternative way of translating this would be:

¿Vuestros hijos gustan de leer?

or

¿Vuestros hijos gustan de la lectura?

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  • @DiegoMijelshon: Is your update that proper grammar, or a slang/regional usage? It looks completely wrong to me :) (But you probably know better than I do.)
    – Flimzy
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 22:54
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    It is proper grammar. "gustar de" is an idiom that can be used in the same way as "like" in English.
    – Diego Mijelshon
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 22:58
  • @DiegoMijelshon: And in that case, you conjugate 'gustar' for the person, not the object being liked, eh?
    – Flimzy
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 23:00
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    @Flimzy: exactly. "Cuando era adolescente, gustaba de la musica punk" or "Cuando era adolescente, me gustaba la musica punk" or "Cuando era adolescente, la musica punk me gustaba [a mi]", they all translate to "When I was a teeenager, I liked [or used to like] punk music"
    – Diego Mijelshon
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 23:07
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    @Flimzy keep in mind the alternative form is more used in writing
    – Diego Mijelshon
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 23:19
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Your two examples are actually different phenomena.

Ex. 1) ¿A vuestros hijos les gusta leer?

Consider the following statements:

  • Me gusta leer.
  • Me gusta leer a mí.
  • A mí, me gusta leer.

You can always add the a mí for emphasis. Similarly, you can add an "a [person]" to clarify who the pronoun refers to, in the more ambiguous case of les.

Ex. 2) Todos los padres quieren a sus hijos.

This is a different case: the personal a, which requires the word a before a direct object that is a person.

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