Bellagio, at the center of Lake Como
How do you say in Italian: “I like Bellagio” and “I like spaghetti”?
Here: “Mi piace Bellagio”and “Mi piacciono gli spaghetti”.
And not: “Io piace Bellagio” o “Io piace spaghetti”!!
What a struggle to learn this construction!
What drives students into error? A simple thing.
They think they are the subject of the sentence, but they, themselves are not!
In the sentence “Mi piacciono gli spaghetti”, the subjects are the spaghetti.
Spaghetti is a plural noun and therefore the verb is third person plural.
In the sentence: “Mi piace Bellagio” the subject is Bellagio.
Bellagio is a singular noun and therefore the verb goes to the third person singular.