Spanish reflexive verbs: The only guide you'll ever need
Alicia Fernández
• Dec 11, 2023
• 10 minutes
Updated Jan 31, 2024
In this volume, we discuss the alphabet, definite and indefinite articles, and verbs ser and estar, among other topics.
Have you ever heard of reflexive verbs? Reflexive verbs are very common in Spanish and we use them daily, especially because many of them have to do with our daily routine, for example:
Me peino todas las mañanas. (I comb myself/my hair every morning.)
The verb peinarse is a reflexive verb. As you already know, an infinitive verb in Spanish ends in -ar, -er, or -ir, so when a verb is reflexive you will see the pronoun se attached to the infinitive form.
Reflexive verbs are a type of pronominal verbs, but not all pronominal verbs are reflexive verbs as we’ll see later in this article. Pronominal means relating to a pronoun which means these verbs require a reflexive pronoun.
Many languages also use reflexive verbs and pronouns such as French (Pierre se lave) and Italian (Pietro si lava). In French, the pronoun se is also contracted when the next word begins with a vowel (Marie et Pierre s'embrassent - Mary and Peter kiss each other.)
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves! We will cover everything you need to know about reflexive verbs in this article. You will learn how to use them, the difference between pronominal and reflexive verbs, their conjugation, common reflexive verbs, reflexive pronouns and their placement, and at the very end you’ll get a chance to quiz yourself.
Let’s dive in!
As we just mentioned, the most commonly studied and talked about pronominal verbs are reflexive verbs. We can identify pronominal verbs by the pronoun se attached to the infinitive form of a verb (peinarse, lavarse, levantarse, cepillarse,...). When we conjugate these verbs, you conjugate them as you would normally, keeping in mind if they are regular, irregular, stem-changing … but you would also add the pronoun in front of the conjugated verb according to the subject:
Lavarse: Eva se lava las manos después de comer. (Eva washes her hands after eating.)
As you already know, the verb lavar on its own is an -ar regular verb, so it is conjugated by dropping the -ar and adding the 3rd person singular in the present tense: lava. However, in this case, it is reflexive (with the pronoun se) which means the subject performing the action is also receiving it. Eva is the subject since she is the one washing something; she is also directly affected by the action or the direct object of the sentence since her hands are the ones being washed by her. Does that make sense?
¡Ojo! Did you notice in the example above that we used las manos instead of sus manos? That’s because since the verb is reflexive, it’s already indicating she is washing her own hands and nobody else’s. It would be redundant to say sus manos. In English, however, we need to indicate that Eva is indeed washing her hands, the verb alone does not tell us that.
Let’s compare our previous example with this one:
Eva lava la ropa. (Eva washes the clothes.)
Is the verb (lava) pronominal or reflexive? No, it’s not. How do you know? The pronoun se is not preceding the verb, which means lavar is not a pronominal or reflexive verb. Eva is not washing her hands, hair, face… but the clothes, so Eva is the subject of the sentence and la ropa is the direct object. Do you see the difference?
You may be wondering, so what’s the difference between pronominal and reflexive verbs? As mentioned previously, reflexive verbs are a type of pronominal verbs. Pronominal verbs in Spanish can’t exist without a reflexive pronoun, unlike reflexive verbs such as lavarse or lavar. In addition, although they are conjugated with reflexive pronouns, which we will see later, the action of the verb does not fall on the person who performs it. Let’s see some examples:
Los estudiantes se quejan de la tarea. (The students complain about the homework.)
The verb quejarse as you can see is pronominal (se is attached to the infinitive); however, it is not a reflexive verb; the action of complaining does not fall on the subject.
Take a look at the following example, is the verb a reflexive and pronominal verb?
Vanessa se maquilla antes de ir a trabajar. (Vanessa puts makeup on before work.)
It looks like the verb maquillarse is pronominal since we see the pronoun se before the conjugated verb. Is the verb reflexive? Does the action fall on the subject (Vanessa)? Yes, in this case it is a pronominal and reflexive verb as the subject of the sentence is also receiving the action.
What if the subject were yo? What pronouns should we use? Se? Let’s take a look at all the reflexive pronouns:
Yo - me
Me cepillo los dientes por la mañana. (I brush my teeth in the morning.)
Tú - te
Te miras en el espejo. (You look at yourself in the mirror.)
Él/Ella/Usted - se
Olivia se despierta muy tarde. (Olivia wakes up late.)
Nosotros/Nosotras - nos
Nos queremos mucho. (We love each other very much.)
Vosotros/Vosotras - os
Os véis a menudo. (You see each other often.)
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes - se
Se perdonan siempre. (They always forgive each other.)
¡Ojo! We do not pronounce me like the English me, the pronunciation would be [MEH] not [MEE]. Same with te [TEH] and se [SEH].
As you saw in the examples above, in English we sometimes translate reflexive verbs with the reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, themselves, yourselves.
Reciprocal verbs such as quererse, verse, perdonarse in the examples above, express an action that people do to each other. Since an action can only be reciprocated with another person, these verbs only work with plural subject pronouns (nosotros/as, vosotros/as, ellos/as). As you saw above, the English equivalent would be the phrase each other.
Other reciprocal verbs are: abrazarse (to hug each other), amarse (to love each other), ayudarse (to help each other). However, keep in mind that these Spanish verbs can be used reflexively and reciprocally, as well as non-pronominally (without a reflexive pronoun):
Nos abrazamos. (We hug each other.)
Ana abraza a su novio. (Ana hugs her boyfriend.)
Los amigos se ayudan en momentos difíciles. (Friends help each other during difficult times.)
Marta ayuda a su padre con la cena. (Marta helps her dad with dinner.)
There are also verbs that change their meaning depending if they are conjugated as a pronominal verb or not:
¡Perdí la cartera! (I lost my wallet.)
Nos perdimos por Nueva York. (We got lost in New York.)
One thing is to lose something like in the first example, and another one is to get lost somewhere.
Or:
Me aburro los domingos. (I get bored on Sundays.)
Ana aburre a sus padres. (Ana bores her parents.)
In the first example, the subject (yo) gets bored, and in the second one, the subject (Ana) bores someone else (her parents).
So are these verbs reflexive? No, the action does not fall on the subject of the sentences. They are pronominal verbs but in this case, they were not reflexive. The verb aburrirse describes an emotion rather than an action performed. These types of verbs are called pseudo-reflexive verbs such as emocionarse (to be excited), alegrarse (to be happy), preocuparse (to be worried).
Finally, there are inherent or pure pronominal verbs that cannot exist without the pronoun se; in other words, se is an inherent part of the verb with no meaning of its own: quejarse de (to complain about), jactarse (to brag), and arrepentirse (to repent / to regret).
By now you should have an idea of how to conjugate pronominal verbs. There are two steps in the conjugation:
How would you conjugate despertarse (to wake up) in the present tense of the 2nd person singular?
So do we always place the pronoun in front of a conjugated verb? No, not always.
Don’t confuse reflexive pronouns with other pronouns! This is very tricky for Spanish learners and students as there are other pronouns that have identical forms:
Me
Te
Lo / La
Nos
Os
Los / Las
Indirect Object Pronouns
Me
Te
Le
Nos
Os
Les
Reflexive Pronouns
Me
Te
Se
Nos
Os
Se
The good thing is that you only have to memorize the 3rd person singular and plural as the other forms are identical!
¡Ojo! There are also constructions with se such as the impersonal se, passive se, and accidental se which are formed with se + verb in the 3rd person singular and/or plural .
Here are some common pronominal verbs:
Despertarse - to wake up
Levantarse - to get up
Lavarse - to wash oneself
Bañarse - to take a bath
Ducharse - to take a shower
Maquillarse - to put makeup on oneself
Peinarse - to comb one’s hair
Cepillarse - to brush
Afeitarse - to shave (oneself)
Vestirse - to get dressed
Acostarse - to go to bed
Verse - to see oneself
Emocionarse - to get excited
Arrepentirse - to regret
Atreverse - to dare
Aburrirse - to get bored
Alegrarse - to get happy
Cansarse - to get tired
Divertirse - to have fun
Enamorarse - to fall in love
Casarse - to get married
Graduarse - to graduate
Olvidarse - to forget
Quedarse - to stay
Well, now you know all about reflexive verbs! You learned that reflexive verbs are a type of pronominal verb, and that reflexive pronouns (me, te, se, nos, os, se) are used to express an action that falls on the subject (me peino, te miras). We also covered that reflexive pronouns in Spanish have to agree with the subject of the sentence, they can be placed before a conjugated verb or attached to an infinitive, gerund/progressive tense, or an affirmative command. We saw different types of pronominal verbs such as reciprocal verbs, verbs that change their meaning depending on whether we are using a reflexive pronoun, pseudo-reflexive verbs, and lastly, pure pronominal verbs.
Finally, you saw other pronouns that have identical forms which can be a bit confusing!
Are you ready for some practice?
If you don’t know a term, don’t forget to look it up in an online dictionary such as https://www.linguee.com/english-spanish.
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Watch out for stem-changing verbs!
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Alicia Fernández is a content writer at Berges Institute.