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**Background** : A few months back, I started making the transition from
studying sentence constructions to studying grammar. While I try to avoid
generating 'Japanese translations of my English ideas,' I still find that I
use the way I speak English as a starting point for constructing a Japanese
sentence that doesn't quite fit anything I've yet heard (or said).

So, with that in mind...

Let's say, for the sake of example, that I'm hanging out with a couple friends
at a pet store in Japan. (Apologies in advance for everything about this
scenario...in particular if it sounds like a screenplay written by a five year
old.) ^.^;

One friend states:

> 「猫が好きよ。」

The other friend turns to me and says:

> 「あなたは？」

I then start thinking of a way to express the idea that, in English, I might
say as: "Like our friend here, I am also fond of cats."

The problem that arises is that I don't know of a word, be it particle or not,
that conveys the 'comparative' nature of the first piece, "Like our friend
here..."

So, improvising a bit, I say:

> 「友達ほど、私も好き。」

My limited exposure to ほど has come in the form of constructions about "He has
as much bread as she does" and the like. Still, the 'as much as'
interpretation of ほど seems like it might fit. (Maybe. ^.^;)

I should also point out that I'm specifically trying to make a comparison
between speaker (that is, myself) and a third-party, as opposed to speaker and
listener (where I'd imagine 「私も」 would be all the comparison I'd need).

So then, my (multi-part but hopefully rhetorically homogeneous) question is,
after using ほど in this context, will the native speakers hear an idea
analogous to the English-language statement that I mentioned above? In other
words, does ほど work at all in this context? If not, is there another word or
particle that would work? (Note that I came across ぐらい as well while I was
looking into this, and it seems like a possible contender...but I'm not at all
acquainted with that word yet.)

And if not...is the "Like our friend..." phrase even something that would
appear in Japanese? (By the way, the 'our' in that phrase is expendable. I
only expected the 友達 from that phrase to survive translation.) Or is this a
case of my trying to shoehorn English communication into the Japanese
language?
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words translation
Can I use ほど in a comparative context, similarly to how I'd use the English word 'like?' (And if not...what can I use?)
Using ほど in this case just sounds weird to me. I guess you could use と同じように.

例: 友達と同じように、私も猫が好きです。 Like our friend, I ,too,like cats.

4年前と同じように. Like four years ago.

母は私や私の兄弟と同じ様に日系ブラジル人で、ブラジルの国籍しか持っていません。 My mother is a Japanese Brazilian, and
like my brothers and I, has only Brazilian citizenship.

Examples taken from alc.co.jp
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2013-02-21T07:27:53.320
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I agree that ほど sounds out of place in

> 友達ほど、私も好きだ。

but somehow the negative statement

> 友達ほどは好きじゃないけど、まぁ、嫌いでもないよ。

does sound possible. I guess that ほど is a technical term, which does fit when
you assess how much you _don't_ like cats, but sounds too impersonal, when you
say how much you _do_ like cats.

There is also

> 友達みたいに好きだ。

which fits your informal context well.

The sentence

> 友達と同じように、私も好きだ。

has two meanings. One is

> Like your friend, I, too, like cats.

The other is

> I like cats the way I like a friend.

You can partially resolve this by saying

> 友達のように、私も好きだ。

which makes it less ambiguous. のように is the more formal version of みたいに and
both translate to

> Cats are like friends to me. _or_  
>  I like cats the way I like friends.
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2013-02-21T11:32:10.583
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As you mentioned, ほど roughly translates to "as much as" or to the level of".
So it can be used to compare you to a friend, but is used more commonly in the
negative sense in order to be humble and modest.

For example:

A: わぁ、日本語が上手ですよ。 Wow, you're really good at Japanese.

B: スミスさんほど上手じゃないんだけど。But I'm not as good as Smith is./I'm not at Smith's
level.

In your situation, 同じで ("same as/just like") would fit. 「A + と ＋ 同じで、B ＋ も」

友達と同じで私も好きです。Same as/Just like my friend, I like cats.

Since the friend was in the situation and previously, just spoken, it's best
to use his/her name. Otherwise it sounds like you are referring to a 3rd party
friend that the listener does not know.
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