Necesito ayuda con la comprension la diferencia entre......me gustaria y quisiera.
Estoy practicando espanol cada jueves con una persona de Ecuador. El dijo que "Yo quisiera es mas cortes o....polite....de la frase "me gustaria."
Si este es verdad, en que situacion yo puedo utilizar "me gustaria"....?
I have trouble understanding in which situation to use each phrase. Am I rude if I use gustaria?
By the way, where on my keyboard is the accent mark?
Por favor, ayudame con "quiero" "me gustaria&

heatwave13
December 16, 2006

nohablo
December 16, 2006
[quo]*Quote from * heatwave13
By the way, where on my keyboard is the accent mark?[/quo]
Hola, heatwave. I can't answer your question about when to use
me gustaría vs. quisiera (I hope someone will, because I'd like to know, too!).
However, I _can_ tell you about typing accent marks.
I think I provided this information on the Rocket Spanish forum
a while back. However, the forum's Search capabilities seem to be
kaput for the moment, so I'll provide the info again here. There
are several different methods for typing foreign characters. On a
PC, holding down the ALT key and typing certain 3 or 4 digit numbers
will give you all the foreign characters without having to change
your keyboard. That's what I do. ALT+0225 gives you á, ALT+0233 = é,
ALT+0241=ñ, etc. You can find a lot more info here:
*__http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm__*
I've also learned recently about a piece of free software that I
probably would use if I weren't so accustomed to ALT+4. It's called
*AllChars* and can be found at
*__http://allchars.zwolnet.com/introduction.html__*. It works very well.
For example, to type é using AllChars, all you have to do is hit the
CTL key and then 'e, either together or sequentially. It's even
easier than ALT+4. I didn't switch to AllChars on my desktop mostly
because I can use ALT+4 on any computer, not just on a computer that
has AllChars installed. However, I've put it on my laptop,
since using ALT+4 on a laptop is a little more complicated than on a
desktop. AllChars is free; if you don't like it, you can just remove
it. :)

ChrisJames
December 20, 2006
Hi,
I have personally found that me gustaría is polite, for example;
me gustaría algo beber! sí para beber me gustaría un vaso de leche
I would like something to drink, yes for to drink I would like a glass of milk
Hope this helps!
Adíos!

frostmartin
January 30, 2007
Hola,
Me gustaria is the dynamic equivalent of "I *would* like". It is the conditional tense and its use is polite just like in english.
"Yo quisiera" is the mysterious Subjunctivo Petérito Imerfecto - a tense that I do not yet understand. But I do understand that it is also polite!
As regards keyboards, I am living in Argentina and bought myself an international spanish keyboard which has made life a lot simpler when it comes to tildes/accents.

Dave-Taylor
August 16, 2007
[quo]*Quote from * heatwave13
Necesito ayuda con la comprension la diferencia entre......me gustaria y quisiera.[/quo]
I understand the two differences to be:
"me gustaria" = "I would like" (ria-suffix goes into the future becoming 'would')
"quisiera" = "I will want" (remember the song 'que seira seira' -what will be, will be)
[quo]*Quote from * heatwave13
I have trouble understanding in which situation to use each phrase. Am I rude if I use gustaria?
By the way, where on my keyboard is the accent mark?[/quo]
From a cultural perspective, I have no idea which is rude and which is polite....however...I guess when in doubt, always append a 'por favor' infront to explicitly imply politeness never hurts.

Mauricio
August 22, 2007
Both, "me gustaria" and "quisiera" are pretty much the same thing. Your friend from Ecuador is right though... if you want to be extra polite... I would use "quisiera".
Think of it this way.... me gustaria... a straight old english "I would like".
"Quisiera" on the other hand is more like "I desire" is a little more strong as in you really really want something, but used when you ask for something is more polite than "me gustaria.
Mauricio

BZ
August 22, 2007
Gramatically speaking both are considered very polite. I asked a teacher this question when I was in Cali and he confirmed that it is OK to use either when requesting something. If you are ever unsure, as previously suggested add a 'por favor' as that is always nice. Also,to quote something from a previous reply...
"me gustaria" = "I would like" (ria-suffix goes into the future becoming 'would')
"quisiera" = "I will want" (remember the song 'que seira seira' -what will be, will be)
These are close but not really correct...gustaria is the Potencial Simple or conditional tense of the verb 'gustar' and not the future tense. To say 'me gustaria' is to say that you would like like to have something if it is possible or you are willing to let me have it........ Quisiera is the the Imperfect Subjunctive tense of the verb 'querer' and is used to express politely a wish or desire as in 'I should like'. What you are quoting from the song should actually be 'que sera sera' where sera is the future tense of the verb 'ser'. Not meaning to hijack the thread but as it was part of it, I hope it's OK. It's really not that important in normal converstion to know or really understand these verb tenses, but both of the requests 'me gustaria' and 'quisiera' are great and you will probably find that you use them alot. One other thing to note is that the book 501 Spanish Verbs is awesome and extremely useful when questions like these come up.
Chao...BZ

Lauren-B1
December 4, 2011
Just throwing in my two cents.
me gustaria = it pleases me that. . . me gustaria andar = walking pleases me. "me" direct object, "andar" the subject.
quisiera = subjunctive = expresses emotional desire and a change in subject usually used with "que"
"Yo quisiera que el mundo tenga paz."
I want/desire that the world (change in subject) has peace.
That's how I understand it.