  I review recent developments in the description of the interactions between
light and heavy mesons by an effective chiral lagrangian having the symmetries
of the Heavy Quark Effective Theory. In particular the problem of the
determination of the strong coupling constants $g_{P^* P \pi}$ and $g_{P^* P
\rho}$ ($P, P^*=$ heavy mesons) is addressed. Invited talk given at the 18th J.
Hopkins Workshop (Florence, September 1994)
