6.8 – Liking tv, movies, music (and more!) – líbit se

We’re going to encounter líbit se again to talk about things we like (recall that we talked about liking clothes in 4.9 – líbit se – liking something). Recall that líbit se is a way of saying that you like something, though not necessarily something you like it strongly. Lots of times it is used to convey impressions of something (vs. a long-standing attachment). Imagine walking out of movie theater and giving your impression of the film you just saw or expressing dislike of a song that is popular, etc.

líbit se

First, take a look at these sentences:

Líbí se mi ačkní filmy.

I like that action movies .

Ten nový film se nám nelíbí.

We don’t like that new movie.

Nelíbí se jí ta písnička.

She doesn’t like that song.

Remember, that to understand how the verb líbit se works, it might be easier to roughly translate it as ‘to be pleasing’.  So in the above examples, you would be literally saying ‘action movies are pleasing to me’, ‘that film is not pleasing to us’, ‘that song is not pleasing to her’.

The thing that you like is actually the subject of the sentence (it is pleasing to me / they are pleasing to me) and this is why the ending that you see on the verb líbit se is -í in the examples above. You’re using the 3rd person forms, we all know the verb endings very well at this point, but just for review, compare the endings for -í- verbs:

Ok, so the thing you like (is pleasing to you) is the subject of the sentence, so how do you express who likes it (i.e. to whom it is pleasing)? As before, we’ll need the dative case. Just a reminder, the dative case is used for the indirect object (I gave a present to Jan, I said something to Helena). Take a look at the concept of case lesson if you need a refresher.

So for Masculine Animate the ending is -ovi regardless of whether it’s hard or soft, while for Feminine it’s -e/-ě

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Haně se ta písnička líbí .

Hana likes that song.

Lukášovi se nejvíc líbí klasická hudba.

Lukáš likes classical music the most.

Notice that for each of these, the person who likes the thing is in the dative case (it is pleasing to them)

You might also want to use pronouns (me, you, him, her, etc.). For that you’ll need…

Dative of Pronouns

The table below gives the dative forms of personal pronouns next to the nominative forms that we already know:

Remember that se is going to be in 2nd position. When you use these pronoun forms, put them right after the word se (they are also technically in 2nd position, but get outranked by se).