Grammar Review: El Presente y Los Verbos Reflexivos

We have covered the present tense verbs from the beginning of our Spanish language journey. While we won't spend time reviewing the regular present tense verbs, we will review the stem-changing verbs. Remember that with any irregular Spanish verbs, you must memorize them; there is no other magic solution for knowing which verbs are irregular. However, practice makes perfect, so the more you use it, the easier it will become.

Stem-Changing Verbs (also known as Boot/Shoe Verbs)

Below is an example of the concept of shoe verbs. The parts of the chart inside the shoe/boot have a vowel change:

Empezar, to begin with the following conjugation. Yo epiezo, nostros empezamos, tú empiezas, vosotros empezáís, él, éllos, élla, ellas, empieza, empiezan, Usted, Ustedes

View the following presentation on Stem-Changing Verbs. Take notes as you view the material as you will be responsible for the content. Be sure your speakers are turned up!

Examples Of Stem Changing Verbs in a chart include O to Ue Verbs, puedo, podemos, puedes, podéis, puede, pueden, E to IE Verbs, pienso, pensamos, piensas, pensáis, piensa, piensan, E to I Verbs, pido, pedimos, pides, pedis, pide, piden

Review of Stem Changing Verbs

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Los Verbos Reflexivos

A "reflexive" sentence is one in which the subject does something to him/herself. Or put another way, the subject and the object of the sentence refer to the same person. The action of the verb in a reflexive sentence is "reflected" back onto the subject. Compare:

In the first sentence the action of the verb, reading, is passed onto an object, the book. The sentence is not reflexive. But in the second sentence, the person doing the washing and the person being washed is one and the same. The second sentence is reflexive. In English, we deal with reflexives by adding words like "himself" or "yourself" to the sentence. In Spanish, we use a special class of verbs known as "reflexive verbs" which have their own unique rules. In their infinitive form, reflexive verbs end with a "-se" after the usual "-ar," "-er," or "-ir." For example, if you look up "to shave" in a Spanish/English dictionary, you'll find "afeitarse" and you can see from its "-se" ending that it is a reflexive verb. Here are some other reflexive verbs. Notice the  "-se"  endings:

Reflexive verbs chart with Spanish and English versions. Spanish, English, despertarse, to wake up, levantarse, to get up, sentarse, to sit down, acostarse, to go to bed

The  "-se"  at the end of each verb is something known as a "reflexive pronoun" and we'll need to pay special attention to it when we conjugate.

To conjugate a reflexive verb we first take the  "-se"  ending and place it in front of the verb. Then we conjugate as we normally would. Here's the process for saying "I shave":

Afeitarse, to shave, conjugation example. Yo afeitarse, Yo se afeitar, Yo se afeito

Note:  In English when someone says "I shave" it's understood that they're talking about shaving themselves. Rarely does anyone say, "I shave myself." But in Spanish, we're a bit more explicit.

This is a good start, but we're not quite done. Just as the verb ending, "-o," needs to agree with the subject, our reflexive pronoun,  se, needs to agree as well. In this case, the  se  needs to become  me:

Using reflexive pronouns example. Yo se afeito to Yo me afeito = I shave, I shave myself

So the reflexive pronoun  se  becomes  me  when the subject is  yo. What about other subjects? Here's the list of reflexive pronouns in Spanish, with subject pronouns for comparison:

Subject pronouns vs. reflexive pronouns chart. Subject pronouns, reflexive pronouns. Yo nosotros, -as, me, nos. Tú, Vosotros, -as, te, os. Él, ella, Ud., ellos, ellas, Uds., se, se

Therefore a complete set of sentences using  afeitarse  as the verb would look like this:

Afeitarse sentences. Yo me, afeito. Tú te afeitas. Róger se afeita. Nosotros nos afeitamos. Vosotros os areitáis. Mis amigos se afeitan.

View the following presentation to review reflexive verbs. Take notes as you view the material as you will be responsible for the content. Be sure your speakers are turned up!

Review of Reflexive Verbs

Please complete the activity below.

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