In Spanish, when a person or animal does something to him/herself, the action is expressed by what is called a reflexive verb. The verb is accompanied by a reflexive pronoun that refers back to the person, indicating that I did something to myself, or you did something to yourself. When you see a verb in a dictionary or on a vocabulary list, you will be able to recognize it as a reflexive because it will have se (the third person reflexive pronoun) attached to the end of the infinitive, for example, bañarse or lavarse. Let’s look first at the reflexive pronouns, and then a few examples of present tense conjugations of reflexive verbs.
Los pronombres reflexivos
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1a |  me |
nos |
| 2a | te |
os |
| 3a | se |
se |
As you can see, the third person singular and plural reflexive pronouns are the same: se. Now we will consider a few examples of reflexive verbs in the present tense.
| levantarse – to get up (tiempo presente) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| afeitarse – to shave (tiempo presente) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
These verbs are conjugated just like all the other verbs that you have learned for the present tense. The endings are the same. What you need to remember is to include the reflexive pronoun! As you will see in the vocabulary section, many of these verbs are associated with personal grooming habits and daily routine activities, such as getting up, getting dressed, and brushing your teeth. A few of these verbs have stem changes, which you learned about in Lección 7. For example, despertarse changes from e to ie. (Me despierto.) Acostarse changes from o to ue. (Juan se acuesta.) Vestirse changes from e to i. (Ellos se visten.)
Here are a few examples of reflexive verbs:
If you are using the present progressive tense, you may place the reflexive pronoun either before the verb phrase (Nos estamos vistiendo) or at the end of the present participle (Está duchándose). Both options are correct, similar to what you learned with the placement of indirect object pronouns in Lección 7.
The important thing to remember with these verbs is that the person is performing the action on him/herself. If you say that you wash your hair, you will use the reflexive verb. However, if you are at the hair salon and someone else washes your hair, then you would not use the reflexive. The person must be acting on him/herself.
Throughout this course, you have frequently seen the verb dormir, meaning “to sleep.” Here, you will see dormirse; when this verb is used as a reflexive, it means to fall asleep. So, for example, you can say, Duermo ocho horas por noche, and En general, me duermo a las once.
Dormirse does not mean to sleep for a period of time, it is only used to indicate the action of falling asleep.
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Candela Citations
- Lesson 8: Vocabulario. Authored by: Open Learning Initiative. Provided by: Carnegie Mellon. Located at: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/workbook/activity/page?context=0ed72f9c80020ca6017ce658606f6eb6. Project: Spanish1. License: CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
