Me lleva vs me llevo (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Me lleva vs me llevo
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Raчraч Ŋuɲa
Triglot
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New Zealand
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Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese

Message 9 of 44

28 December 2010 at 10:58pm | IP Logged

s_allard wrote:

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.

Even if prepararme is a pronominal verb, I haven't seen it yet being the subject,
unless your translating it into English first as "Preparing myself takes (me) a lot of
time" and getting its function there. I would translate it as "It takes me a long time
to prepare myself".

In your second example, hacerlo can't be subject unless you're prepared to make it a
subject in these sentences as well:

(a) Este montaje me ha costado hacerlo un par de dias pero creo que ha merecido
la pena y me ha quedado...
(b) Este trabajo me ha costado hacerlo cuatro meses.

There would be 2 subjects then in the above sentences, with "este montaje" and "este
trabajo" subjects as well together with "hacerlo". These are in fact sentences with two
verbs, with the first (costar) conjugated and the second (hacer) verb in the infinitive
with an attached enclitic, very much like:

Ella necesita hacerlo.

I would prefer this explanation for the original sentence: Sí, me lleva mucho tiempo
prepararme ("Yes, it takes me a long time to prepare myself").

Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 28 December 2010 at 11:34pm
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s_allard
Triglot
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Canada
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Message 10 of 44

29 December 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged

Raчraч Ŋuɲa wrote:

s_allard wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what the problem is here. I totally agree that the best translation is "It takes me a lot of time to get ready". That isn't the problem. The question is what is the subject of the verb "lleva". We know that Spanish often does not use the subject pronoun. So should we say that the example is in fact?

Sí él me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme.

What does this él refer to? I guess that could work, although it strikes me as a literal translation from English. If that's your interpretation, that's fine. However, I still would argue that Spanish readily uses the inverted subject order. For example, in:

Me gusta mucho bailar

What is the subject? I suggest it is bailar. Now, I translate this example as "I like to dance", but that doesn't prevent bailar from being the subject. This is why we would write:

Me gustan bailar y comer

for "I like to dance and eat"

To go back to the original example, suppose we were talking about two actions, I suggest:

Sí, me llevan mucho tiempo comer y prepararme.

Now, if someone thinks that the proper syntax should be

Sí, me lleva mucho tiempo comer y prepararme

That is a different interpretation that I don't follow. This of course is not the same as:

Sí, se me lleva mucho tiempo comer y prepararme

where we introduce a subject with the pronominal form llevarse, but again that's a different construction.

As for the logic of hacerlo being a subject in my example only if I'm prepared to accept it being a subject in a different example, I really can't follow that line of reasoning. I believe it is a subject in my example but not a subject in the other examples.

Edited by s_allard on 29 December 2010 at 3:45am
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Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5346 days ago
727 posts - 1830 votes

Speaks: Spanish*

Message 11 of 44

29 December 2010 at 1:38am | IP Logged

s_allard wrote:

Sí él me lleva mucho tiempo hacerlo.

What does this él refer to? I guess that could work, although it strikes me as a literal translation from English. If that's your interpretation, that's fine.

You can't say the above in Spanish.

You can say:

Sí, eso me lleva mucho tiempo de hacer.

s_allard wrote:

However, I still would argue that Spanish readily uses the inverted subject order. For example, in:

Me gusta mucho bailar

What is the subject? I suggest it is bailar.

Bailar is the object of the verb gustar. The subject is "me", or "to me".

s_allard wrote:

Me gustan bailar y comer

Small mistake. You say:

Me gusta bailar y comer.

s_allard wrote:

Sí, me llevan mucho tiempo comer y prepararme.

Now, if someone thinks that the proper syntax should be

Sí, me lleva mucho tiempo comer y prepararme

That is a different interpretation that I don't follow.

In fact, "Me llevan mucho tiempo comer y prepararme" is mistaken, and "Sí, me lleva mucho tiempo comer y prepararme" is correct.
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lingoleng
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Germany
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Message 12 of 44

29 December 2010 at 1:56am | IP Logged

Juаn wrote:

Me gusta mucho bailar
Bailar is the object of the verb gustar. The subject is "me", or "to me".

This is hard to believe. Your native intuitions and corrections given above are highly appreciated and can certainly contribute to a better understanding of the construction, but what you say here is that "Me gusta bailar" is syntactically equivalent to "I like the book". If you are not talking about some kind of underlying logical form this is really against any intuition. In German one says "Tanzen gefällt mir" with Tanzen as Subject, without doubt, and I always thought that this is analogue to the Spanish construction of "gustar". You don't agree with this usual interpretation?
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Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
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Speaks: Spanish*

Message 13 of 44

29 December 2010 at 2:22am | IP Logged

Compare the following:

A mí me gusta leer y aprender idiomas.

but

A mí me gustan los idiomas y la lectura.
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Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
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Speaks: Spanish*

Message 14 of 44

29 December 2010 at 2:39am | IP Logged

Despite what you read on forums like this one, Spanish grammar is very devious and complex.
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Raчraч Ŋuɲa
Triglot
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Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese

Message 15 of 44

29 December 2010 at 3:24am | IP Logged

Juаn wrote:

s_allard wrote:

However, I still would argue that Spanish readily uses the inverted
subject order. For example, in:

Me gusta mucho bailar

What is the subject? I suggest it is bailar.Now, I translate this example as "I like to
dance", but that doesn't prevent bailar from being the subject. This is why we would
write:

Me gustan bailar y comer

for "I like to dance and eat"

Bailar is the object of the verb gustar. The subject is "me", or "to me".

s_allard wrote:

Me gustan bailar y comer

Small mistake. You say:

Me gusta bailar y comer.

s_allard wrote:

In fact, "Me llevan mucho tiempo comer y prepararme" is mistaken, and "Sí, me lleva
mucho tiempo comer y prepararme" is correct.

I agree that Spanish uses the inverted subject order, even for the infinitive, but I
haven't seen yet an infinitive with an enclitic (prepararme in the original sentence)
as a subject.

I agree with the translation of "Me gusta mucho bailar" as "I like to dance a lot", but
here bailar is not the subject (Subject could be ello, eso or esto). It would be the
subject if it is "Me gusta mucho el bailar" even if in English it is translated
as "I like (the) dancing a lot." And since "bailar y comer" is not the subject, gustar
can't be made plural (gustan), as Juan said. And the same reason why "Me llevan mucho
tiempo comer y prepararme" is mistaken.

I disagree with Juan though since to me, "me" is an object, not a subject.

Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 29 December 2010 at 3:48am
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s_allard
Triglot
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Canada
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Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
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Message 16 of 44

29 December 2010 at 4:38am | IP Logged

O.K., everybody. Let's try to understand what is going on. I'm willing to admit my mistakes when they are pointed out to me. Can we say that

Mi hermano me hace falta.
Me hace falta mi hermano.
(I miss my brother.)

are the equivalent. And

Mis hermanos me hacen falta.
Me hacen falta mis hermanos.
(I miss my brothers)

are the equivalent.

In all the above examples what are the subjects and the indirect objects of the verb "hacer"? It seems to me pretty clear that the subjects are "Mi hermano" and "Mis hermanos". The indirect object is "me". This is exactly the same structure in:

Me gusta el libro.
Me fascinan los idiomas.
Me encantan la música y la danza.

Let's go back to the very original example. Here, I would like to erase everything I said above and start from scratch, but I will leave it for the historical record.

Me lleva mucho tiempo prepararme.

What is the subject of "lleva"? I claim it is "prepararme". Why? Because the above phrase can be inverted into:

Prepararme me lleva mucho tiempo.

Here are two examples taken from the definitions of the verb "llevar" in the excellent Reverso dictionary:

el trabajo me llevará tres días the work will take me three days
llevará varias horas reparar la avería it will take several hours to carry out the repairs

Now, what may be confusing is the structure of the English translation. "It takes me a long time to get ready". The subject of the translation is not that of the Spanish of course. I'll also admit my earlier mistake with the forms like:

me gusta mucho comer y bailar

where the verb is in the singular and not in the plural even though there are two verbs in the subject. That is my mistake but does not take away from the issue here. So I would now say:

Me lleva mucho tiempo bañarme y prepararme.

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