Groups - the subject of verbs like gustar and faltar
Hola todos
The Cucaracha song reminded me of something which always confused me about Spanish. I am pretty sure that a Spanish speaker might say something like
1) “El studiante que/quien le gusta las matemáticas es muy listo”.
What confuses me is that the student isn’t the subject of the verb questar. I would say
2) “El studiante a quien le gusta las matemáticas es muy listo”.
I know that a Spanish speaker might say it both ways but the first way does not sound right to me. What do you guys think.
Tags: gustar,
in the Group the deep end .
Comments (3) 
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Hi steve, here's what I'd say:
El estudiante al que le gustan las matemáticas es muy listo.
Three little notes:
1) the subject of the verb "gustar" is "las matemáticas; hence the verb is plural.
2) "El estudiante" (the dude, not the words) is the indirect object of "gustar," that's why we have the "le." The corresponding relative pronoun is "a que" or "al que."
3) You might be able to use "a quien," depending on your intention. Usually "quien" is reserved for unrestricted subordinate clauses, which is to say that the words following quien are not giving new information. Here's an English illustration.
restrictive clause: The student who likes math is smart. (no commas, the clause "who likes math" is trying to be precise about which student it is; imagine there is a group of students and we're only pointing out the one who likes math, not the others.)
unrestrictive clause: The student, who likes math, is smart. Notice how we set it off with commas; here the clause "who likes math" is not helping us narrow down which student; we've already got that student in mind. That clause "who likes math," is giving extra information about the student. I could re-translate this as "The student is smart... he likes math, you know."
Anyway, I am not always thinking restrictive vs. unrestrictive, so I tend to favor "que" over "quien" when picking a relative pronoun. "Que" is the safe option.
JP
Thank you for your answer, it covered a lot and I am embarrassed that I said “gusta las matemáticas”. There is still one thing that still confuses me. One wouldn’t say El estudiante le gustan las matemáticas since “El estudiante is the object of the verb not the subject. But it is possible to say “El estudiante, que le gustan las matemáticas, es muy listo” as if “el estudiante” was the subject of the verb. I know that Spanish speakers will also say “El estudiante al que le gustan las matemáticas es muy listo” which sounds a lot better to me. This might be just one of those things that I should just live with. JP I really appreciated you answer my questions with so much thought.
From what I understand, I think you would say:
El estudiante que le gustan las matemáticas es muy listo.
In this case we have a restrictive clause (not set off by commons). The word "que" asks as the relative pronoun whom, which is the direct object of gustar.
Whenever que is used as a direct object within the relative clause, I don't believe you use the personal a, simply que.
However, if you wanted to use quien, you would use the personal a.
El estudiante a quien le gustan las matemáticas es muy listo.