How do verbs like 'gustar' actually function?

Question

I am far enough into learning Spanish that I know **gustar** does not literally mean 'to like' but means 'to be pleasing to.' My supposition would be that 'gustar' and similar verbs would function like other Spanish verbs with indirect objects; for example, **'Sonia likes apples'**, or in literal translation, 'Apples are pleasing to Sonia,' with **Apples** as a subject and **to Sonia** as the indirect object would be **Las manzanas no le gusta a Sonia.** However, typically one would say **A Sonia no le gustan las manzanas.** Why is that? Doesn't that flip the subject and indirect object, or are they both the same?

Answer 1

Glen,

You just flipped the order of the last sentence, but grammatical function remains the same for each of the parts of the sentence. You are only wrong in that you still need an “n” in “las manzanas no le gustan a Sonia”. But I’d start the sentence with “A Sonia...”, unless you want to emphasize the apples. If you do, start sentence with “Las manzanas...”.