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Today I presented to my teacher a sentence I wrote for my homework:

Juan es el solo uno en nuestra clase a que gusta el helado. (John is the only one in our class who likes ice cream.)

But my teacher said it is supposed to be;

Juan es el solo uno en nuestra clase que le gusta el helado.

To me this doesn't make sense.

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The verb "gustar" is Spanish means "to be pleasing." We use the form "gustarse", which means to be pleasing to someone. There is no verb which literally means "to like" in Spanish. Instead of saying "he likes", we say "to him it is pleasing", or "(a él) le gusta."

So, when we are saying "John is the only one in our class who likes ice cream" we would say "Juan es el único en nuestra clase a quien le gusta el helado."

*In Spanish, "solo uno" makes no sense. Instead, you should say "el único" or "la única". It is also proper to say "a quien" or "al que" instead of "que".

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  • Why is it al que? Not a que
    – user11355
    Jun 20, 2015 at 20:24
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    In Spanish, it is proper to add the article before "que" when it follows a preposition. So, it would be "al que" or "a la que", depending on the gender of the subject. The article is often left out after the preposition "en" and sometimes with the preposition "de" and "con", but usually only when it is not referring to a human.
    – TreeHouse196
    Jun 20, 2015 at 20:28
  • I must also add that, despite what I previously said, it is common to say "con quien" or "de quien", although with the preposition "que" and people, we usually keep the article and say "con el/la que" and "del que/de la que" (may differ with dialect).
    – TreeHouse196
    Jun 20, 2015 at 20:36
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I'm spanish and the correction of your teacher doesn't make any sense to me neither. It should be:

Juan es el único de nuestra clase al que le gusta el helado

Or in case you want me to correct your original answer:

Juan es el ÚNICO en nuestra clase AL que LE gusta el helado

Where the uppercase words are the words I changed.

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