costar

The everyday verb for the price of something, and just as commonly used figuratively for effort or difficulty ("me cuesta entender esto"). It behaves like gustar — the thing that costs is the grammatical subject, and the person takes an indirect object.

• Este libro cuesta veinte euros. — This book costs twenty euros.
• Me costó mucho aprender a nadar. — It was very hard for me to learn to swim.
• Vamos a lograrlo, cueste lo que cueste. — We're going to achieve it, whatever it costs.

Learners often try to conjugate it like a normal transitive verb with the person as subject ("yo cuesto") — but like gustar, the price or difficulty is the subject, and the person takes an indirect object pronoun (me, te, le...).

• expression cueste lo que cueste — Widely used fixed phrase meaning "at all costs" / "no matter what it takes," common in Spanish media, politics, and everyday speech to express determination regardless of sacrifice.