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Me lleva vs me llevo | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Birddog Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5514 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 44 28 December 2010 at 2:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi all,
I am going through the Learning Spanish like Crazy modules and they have a sentence: Si, me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme. -> Yes, it takes me a long time to get ready. I don't understand why it is "me lleva" and not "me llevo". Is it because "me" is acting as the indirect object pronoun here and "lleva" is agreeing with some implied subject? If so, then what is the implied subject, and what is the direct object? How would the meaning change if it were to be written with "me llevo" instead, or with time expressions of this nature can you only use "me lleva"? It would be much appreciated if someone could shed some light on this for me, Birddog 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| peppelanguage Triglot Groupie ItalyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 90 posts - 94 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, English Studies: French, Swedish | Message 2 of 44 28 December 2010 at 2:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Me lleva mucho tiempo
= (to me) it takes a lot of time In English "it takes" a lot of time... impersonal In Spanish "me lleva" mucho tiempo... impersonal Can't see the difficulty :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 3 of 44 28 December 2010 at 2:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Me llevo would mean something like I take myself or me llevo x, I take x with me.
Me lleva mucho tiempo as you write is similar in English: it takes me a lot of time. Only, you omit the impersonal subject it in Spanish, which is understood. You don't say I take me too long to dress which would be a literal translation of me llevo mucho tiempo... Another construction similar to the above is me toma mucho tiempo aprender un idioma nuevo - it takes me a lot of time to learn a new language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ratis Hexaglot Newbie Germany Joined 5104 days ago 28 posts - 43 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin Studies: Czech, Japanese Studies: Hindi | Message 4 of 44 28 December 2010 at 2:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems be nearly the same structure in English and Spanish. The personal pronoun "it"
(not called out in Spanish, as usual) and the infinitives "(to) get ready" / "prepararme" are the subjects, "me"/"me" are the indirect objects and "time" / "tiempo" are the direct objects. So you were right, lleva is agreeing with the 3rd person subject. "Me llevo mucho tiempo ..." would translate as "I take myself a long time to...", which I believe makes about as much sense in Spanish as it does in English. Edited by ratis on 28 December 2010 at 2:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5586 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 44 28 December 2010 at 3:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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to put it simple:
llevar = to take lleva = (it) takes me lleva = (it) takes me 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 6 of 44 28 December 2010 at 6:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, I think this user's intuition is right: "lleva" here is simply the verb that goes with the subject "prepararme". Remember that Spanish readily inverts subject order in sentences. You'll often seen newspaper titles with forms like "Fallece a los 75 años el escritor Juan X" which could be translated by "Writer Juan X dies at age 90." As for the "me", this is an indirect object pronoun that goes with the verb "llevar." There are actually a number of possible variants: (notice that I have put the accent back on Sí): Sí, me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme. Sí, lleva mucho tiempo prepararme. Sí, llevo mucho tiempo preparándome. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5819 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 44 28 December 2010 at 8:34am | IP Logged | |||||
I can't quite agree that "prepararme" is a subject here. Although Spanish does invert word order and infinitives like preparar can function as a subject, they are not attached with object pronouns, or at least I haven't encountered one yet, until today. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 44 28 December 2010 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure I understand the objection. First of all, prepararme in this case is not preparar + object pronoun me but a form of the pronominal verb prepararse. In other words, the example could have taken in the third person the following form, Sí, le lleva mucho tiempo prepararse. The second point is that infinitive + object pronoun can be used as a subject as well, as in: Me ha costado hacerlo pero estoy muy contento. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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