Spanish: Hobbies

When describing your favourite hobby you can use the verb gustar, which means ‘to like’.

To say you like something, you use me gusta (I like).

Here are some popular examples of hobbies in Spanish:

You can combine these with me gusta like below:

• Me gusta bailar - I like to dance

• Me gusta jugar al fútbol - I like to play football

• Me gusta tocar la guitarra - I like to play guitar

The ‘j’ sound

Remember in Spanish that ‘j’ is pronounced as a very hard ‘h’, for example:

• jugar al fútbol - to play football

• jugar al tenis - to play tennis

Negatives

You can also use gustar when saying that you don’t like something by putting ‘no’ in front of the verb.

For example:

• No me gusta mirar la televisión - I don’t like to watch television

• No me gusta cantar - I don’t like to sing

• No me gusta nadar - I don’t like to swim

Conjunctions

To expand your sentence you can use a conjunction such as porque (because).

This means you can add an adjective after the conjunction to give a reason why you do or don’t like a hobby, for example:

• Me gusta cantar porque es divertido - I like to sing because it’s fun

• Me gusta dibujar porque es interesante - I like to draw because it’s interesting

• No me gusta bailar porque es difícil - I don’t like to dance because it’s difficult

Try using some of the adjectives below to expand your sentences:

Did you know?

Although porque means 'because', it can be said different as por qué, which means ‘why’.