Express likes and skills for actions (〜のが好き / 上手)

In Japanese, descriptive adjectives like 好き (like), 上手 (good at), and 下手 (poor at) must attach to nouns using the particle が. When you want to describe an action rather than a physical object, you cannot connect the verb directly to が (泳ぐが好き is ungrammatical). You place the nominalizer の directly after the dictionary form (泳ぐのが好き). This turns the entire verb phrase into a noun concept equivalent to English “-ing”.