Voted Best Answer
Mar 29, 2010 - 07:20 PM
You are right that ’sentarse’ and ’sentirse’ can be tricky, but usually you can tell which one is being used due to the context. I suppose they wanted to introduce both so the learner is aware of the two different words and not think one was the other from not knowing about the two different words. In the lessons now you’ll see more of the reflexive verbs with the pronoun in front (unless if in infinitive of course).
For llamarse, if we were saying they were called we would use past tense ’se llamaron’. For example, en los años 60, un grupo de chicos que se llamaron "The Beatles" eran los chicos mas famosos del mundo.
For present tense we would use ’se llaman". Example: Hoy, un grupo de musicos ingleses que se llaman "Coldplay" son muy popular.
I think the reason my Me Siento is used twice in the exercises is again to show that these words can have different meanings. When you click on them in Repeat the words, they both have the different
meanings, but when you see them by themselves without a point of context, you wouldn’t know which one it was referring in. I think also the idea is for the user to see the difference between, ’te sientes’,
vs ’te sientas’.
I’m not quite sure what they are getting at with ’le gusta vestirse en esa tienda’. I suppose it means he likes using clothes from that particular store. I’ll bring this up. It just might be a case of the writers wanting to use vestirse in infintive and that’s what they came up with.
For "Se quedaron hasta la una", the ’hasta’ is replacing the ’a’ preposition. Consider these two sentences. "a las dos estuvimos en la fiesta" - at 2 o’clock we were at the party (imagine someone asking where you were at a certain time) and "hasta las dos estuvimos en la fiesta" - until 2:00 we were at the party (they left at 2)
So the meaning is changed with the preposition change. Sorry if this wasn’t explained completely in the lessons.
And for ’me voy’ vs ’me estoy yendo’, although I’m leaving would be better literally translated as ’me estoy yendo’ in my experience I rarely hear ’me estoy yendo’. I think Me Voy is shorter and easier. If
I was leaving a late party I would simply say to my friends. "Ya esta tarde y estoy cansado. Me voy!" but if my girlfriend was waiting for me and called me up just as I was leaving asking how much longer I’d be I could say "Me estoy yendo para la casa!" to make it sound like I’m already in the process of going home. I think this is mostly a case of English and Spanish not using the same constructions in
certain situations.
I hope this helps and please let us know if you have any further questions.
For llamarse, if we were saying they were called we would use past tense ’se llamaron’. For example, en los años 60, un grupo de chicos que se llamaron "The Beatles" eran los chicos mas famosos del mundo.
For present tense we would use ’se llaman". Example: Hoy, un grupo de musicos ingleses que se llaman "Coldplay" son muy popular.
I think the reason my Me Siento is used twice in the exercises is again to show that these words can have different meanings. When you click on them in Repeat the words, they both have the different
meanings, but when you see them by themselves without a point of context, you wouldn’t know which one it was referring in. I think also the idea is for the user to see the difference between, ’te sientes’,
vs ’te sientas’.
I’m not quite sure what they are getting at with ’le gusta vestirse en esa tienda’. I suppose it means he likes using clothes from that particular store. I’ll bring this up. It just might be a case of the writers wanting to use vestirse in infintive and that’s what they came up with.
For "Se quedaron hasta la una", the ’hasta’ is replacing the ’a’ preposition. Consider these two sentences. "a las dos estuvimos en la fiesta" - at 2 o’clock we were at the party (imagine someone asking where you were at a certain time) and "hasta las dos estuvimos en la fiesta" - until 2:00 we were at the party (they left at 2)
So the meaning is changed with the preposition change. Sorry if this wasn’t explained completely in the lessons.
And for ’me voy’ vs ’me estoy yendo’, although I’m leaving would be better literally translated as ’me estoy yendo’ in my experience I rarely hear ’me estoy yendo’. I think Me Voy is shorter and easier. If
I was leaving a late party I would simply say to my friends. "Ya esta tarde y estoy cansado. Me voy!" but if my girlfriend was waiting for me and called me up just as I was leaving asking how much longer I’d be I could say "Me estoy yendo para la casa!" to make it sound like I’m already in the process of going home. I think this is mostly a case of English and Spanish not using the same constructions in
certain situations.
I hope this helps and please let us know if you have any further questions.