Spanish ’se’ (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

czech
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7196 days ago
395 posts - 378 votes

Studies: English*

Message 25 of 28

26 September 2005 at 3:35pm | IP Logged

When you say you do something to someone (verb-object), you use these pronouns:

me
te
lo, la
nos
los, las

Me amo. I love me.
Te amas. You love you.
Nos amamos.

Those sentences above (English) are grammatically incorrect, but are understood as the self form, but translate: "he loves himself" with the pronoun chart above.

Lo ama. Right?

Well, this is confusing.
It means "he loves him".

When I said "me amo" you understood because there is only 1 me to love and in "te amas" only 1 you to love (as well as nos amamos). So it was not confusing to say "I love me" and "you love you" as you are literally saying in Spanish. But when you say "he loves him", there is a problem. There are multiple "he's". It could be one person loving himself, or one person loving another. For this purpose, Spanish has another pronoun.

"se"

Se ama. He loves himself.

Lo ama. He loves him. (not himself, someone else)

So now let's make an adjustment to those pronouns:

Direct objects:    Reflexive version:

me         &nbs p;       -
te         &nbs p;       -
lo, la         &nbs p;   se
nos         &nb sp;     -
los, las         &nb sp; se

Hope that helps.

1 person has voted this message useful

Miri-chan
Tetraglot
Groupie
United States
crimsonietta.ne
Joined 7010 days ago
59 posts - 60 votes

2 sounds
Speaks: Cantonese, English*, French, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Thai

Message 26 of 28

26 September 2005 at 7:56pm | IP Logged

The lesson of the day... never let a Frech speaker teacj Spanish. XD
1 person has voted this message useful

patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 7017 days ago
3795 posts - 4268 votes

Speaks: Spanish, English*
Personal Language Map

Message 27 of 28

06 October 2005 at 2:29pm | IP Logged

It's good to see that this discussion has moved from talking about "leaving" to talking about "loving". The best swap of "ea" for "o" that I have seen.

However, I'm afraid (or ashamed?) to say that I don't know much grammar, but......

cbashara wrote:

Most native speakers of any language don't understand a large part of their own grammar, they just "know" how it works. I think as adults we have a hard time with that concept. We just want to know "Why do they do it this way?"

I couldn't agree more.

IMHO best way to learn grammar - read, read, read, read and listen.
1 person has voted this message useful

mello
Groupie
Brazil
mypolyglot.com
Joined 7056 days ago
48 posts - 48 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*
Studies: English

Message 28 of 28

06 October 2005 at 5:05pm | IP Logged

Hi, friends
the best way to learn this kind of subjests in Spanish is, learn by heart some sententes using both
for example "yo me caso" (the verb is carsarse) so is necessary to put the reflexive forms before the verb
"me caso, te casas, se casa, nos casamos, os casais, se casan"

but for this sentence "el cura casa los novios" is different, 'coz the verb is casar and no casarse.

another example can be seeing as follows:
I wash myself= yo ME lavo
you wash yourself= t� te lavas or Ud SE lava

but
I wash the car = yo lavo el coche

if I can help you i will be glad.

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