Talking about likes and dislikes

In one line

Verbs of liking take the definite article — J'aime le café, not du café — unless an infinitive comes in between, in which case the second verb decides: J'aime boire du café.

Phrases

Liking — in order of strength

J'aime bien is less than J'aime, not more. That bien weakens the verb — the opposite of what an English speaker expects, since English adverbs always intensify ("I like it a lot", "I really like it").

And with a person the difference matters enormously: Je t'aime means "I love you"; Je t'aime bien means "I like you". Adding a word makes it less romantic, not more.

Disliking

Preferring

Asking about taste

The article after a verb of liking

When the noun comes directly after the verb, it always takes the definite article, never the partitive:

Whereas with verbs of eating and drinking, the partitive appears:

The logic is that taste applies to the whole thing, not to a quantity of it.

English uses no article at all here — "I like coffee" — so the French le has to be added deliberately. It is the commonest single error in this whole topic.

But if an infinitive comes in between, the rule changes

That rule works only when the noun is the object of the liking verb itself. As soon as an infinitive comes between them, the noun is no longer the object of aimer — it is the object of the second verb, and takes its article from there:

Look at the verb attached to the noun, not at the first verb in the sentence.

The three-second test

Remove the verb of liking and see what is left:

And la after an infinitive is not wrong — it changes the meaning

When in doubt, use the partitive after an infinitive. For everyday verbs (écouter · boire · manger · faire · acheter) that is almost always right.

Examples

Common mistakes

plaire — a verb that works backwards

With plaire à, the thing being liked is the subject:

And in the past:

Ce film m'a plu. — I liked that film

The participle of plaire never agrees — its object is indirect: Elle m'a plu, not plue.

English has one verb that does this too and you already handle it: "it pleases me", and more commonly "it appeals to me". plaire is that structure as the everyday form.

Traps

aimer — and the four levels you have to distinguish