We all have routines and actions that we "usually" carry out. Meet Silvia from the El Aula Azul Language School in San Sebastian, Spain, who typically does the same things every day.

Yo normalmente me levanto a las siete de la mañana.

I normally get up at seven in the morning.

Caption 1, El Aula Azul - Actividades Diarias

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Silvia "normally" gets up at seven, expressed in Spanish much the same as we would in English. However, where we English speakers tend to use the adverb "usually," Spanish speakers opt for the present tense of soler—a verb that means "to be accustomed to."

Silvia tells us:

Ehm... Suelo ducharme con agua caliente.

Um... I usually take a hot shower.

Caption 2, El Aula Azul - Actividades Diarias

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 She "is accustomed to" showering with hot water; it is what she usually does.

Después, ehm... suelo lavarme los dientes en el baño,

After that, um... I usually brush my teeth in the bathroom,

Caption 3, El Aula Azul - Actividades Diarias

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Then, she usually brushes her teeth in the bathroom, it's what she is accustomed to doing. Notice that in Spanish people "wash" (lavarse) their teeth. It's possible to use cepillarse (to brush), which is closer to the English, but lavarse is the more common way to express this activity.

This is also a good time to remind ourselves that Spanish tends not to use possessive pronouns when talking about body parts. Notice that Silvia says that she brushes "los dientes," not "mis dientes." We discussed this before in the lesson "Ojo - Keep an Eye on This Lesson."

Speaking of past lessons, we also took a look at soler before, but focusing on the imperfect tense, solía—which indicates that someone "was accustomed to" doing something, typically expressed in English as "used to."

Se me ha olvidado quién soy yo

I have forgotten who I am

Caption 2, Cienfue - Medio Alcohólico Melancólico

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As English speakers, we might be wondering why “I have forgotten,” in the caption above, isn’t using the first person (yo or "I") conjugation of haber, as in [yo] he olvidado... 

In fact, Cienfue could have sung precisely that, which would be the most “English-like” way of expressing his thought:

[yo] he olvidado quién soy yo
I have forgotten who I am

Another alternative would be the pronominal (think “reflexive”) form, olvidarse:

[yo] me he olvidado de quién soy yo
I have forgotten who I am

Note that the pronominal option requires a “de” after olvidado. The reason for this is that olvidarse, like most pronominal verbs, does not take a direct object, while olvidar is “transitive”—meaning it does (and must) take a direct object. Native speakers often just “know” this instinctively.

Cienfue doesn’t opt for either of these, rather going with what, to English speakers, will be the most “foreign” (though commonplace in Spanish) construction, olvidársele. Olvidársele is what is known as the "impersonal" (or “terciopersonal,” third person) construction of olvidarse. 

In contrast to what we are accustomed to in English, the subject of the sentence is the thing forgotten, while the person doing the forgetting is expressed as an indirect object (signified by the le appended to olvidarse). Something "gets forgotten" (passive voice) "by someone."

So, when Cienfue sings,

Se me ha olvidado quién soy yo

the subject of the sentence is “quién soy yo” (who I am) and the indirect object is “me” (me).

Cienfue is most literally saying:
“ ‘Who I am’ has been forgotten by me”

Most Spanish speakers, even if pressed, will find precious little (if any) difference in meaning amongst the three possible constructions. There are definitely regional as well as personal preferences.

It can also be argued that there are nuanced differences in emphasis. For example, the “impersonal” form places the least “blame” on the person doing the forgetting. This type of verb construction has even been called sin culpa (without blame), and it’s not the first time we’ve encountered it in our discussions.

What if you want to simply say "I forgot."? (e.g. in response to Por qué no fuiste a trabajar? Why didn't you go to work?)

Olvidé. INCORRECT (requires a direct object.)
Lo olvidé. (I forgot.) (direct object pronoun lo refers to “work”)
Me olvidé. (I forgot)
Se me olvidó. (I forgot.)

Let's cap this off with a few more examples of each possible olvidar constructions: transitive (the most "English-like", and perhaps least common), pronominal (looks like "reflexive") and impersonal:

You forget that I am the boss?
¿Olvidas que yo soy el jefe?
¿Te olvidas de que yo soy el jefe?
¿Se te olvida que yo soy el jefe?

Maria forgot to pick up her cat.
Maria olvidó recoger su gato.
Maria se olvidó de recoger su gato.
A Maria se le olvidó recoger su gato.

Jorge forgot his money.
Jorge olvidó el dinero.
Jorge se olvidó del dinero.

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[In some cases, like this one, the pronominal form alters the meaning slightly. “Jorge forgot about the money,” or even “Jorge kissed the money goodbye.”]

A Jorge se le olvidó el dinero.

Now is a good time to catch up on (or review) these related lessons:

Accidental Grammar
Caer Bien: To Like It
Gustar: To Like, to Please, to Taste
“Le” in Verbs Like Gusta

Yabla Spanish viewer Donnie (dryanespanol) wrote and asked:

In "Fiesta en Miami," - Antonio pronounces the "h" when he says "hace." I have always been told this is a cardinal sin. Please explain.

That's a good question! Does the Canary Islander Antonio Polegre really pronounce the "h" in "hace"? Well, we took a listen and it SEEMS like he does! What is going on? 
 

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One of the first things we notice is that, in caption 35, when Antonio says hice mis amigos ("I made my friends"), we do NOT hear any "h" sound in hice. So why would Antonio pronounce hice correctly but not hace? We also notice that he didn't pronounce the final s in mis nor in amigos -- a common enough practice in many regions, and, oddly enough, perhaps a telling clue.

Hice mis amigos, tengo mi novia.

I made friends, I have my girlfriend.

Caption 35, Fiesta en Miami - Antonio

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Antonio uses hace four times in the video (once in captions 46 and 47 and twice in caption 52), each time as part the two word combination nos hace; and each time it really does sound like he is pronouncing the "h" in hace.

Nos hace amigos de otros amigos,

It make us friends of other friends,

nos hace conocer a gente.

it makes us meet people.

Captions 46-47, Fiesta en Miami - Antonio

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We did a little research to see if perhaps "Canarian" Spanish makes an exception to the "never pronounce the 'h'" rule. We don't find such an exception, but we do find another characteristic of Canarian Spanish echoed in a number of places, such as wikipedia:

/s/ debuccalization. As is the case with many varieties of Spanish, /s/ debuccalized to [h] in coda position.

Obviously not written for the layman! A little more research tells us that "debuccalization" is a linguistics term that describes a sound being "reduced" to an "h sound" (e.g. the "h" in "high"), and that the "coda" position is the final position in a syllable, after the vowel. 

So, if Antonio is "debuccalizing" the final "s" in nos, which produces an "h sound," then perhaps what we are hearing is not the "h" in hace but rather the "debuccalized /s/" (i.e. "h sound") at the end of "nos"! Could it be?

Let's look at captions 51 - 52:

Y al final yo considero que todo nos une,

And, in the end, I consider that everything unites us,

todo nos hace... todo nos hace ser humanos.

everything makes us... everything makes us human.

Captions 51-52, Fiesta en Miami - Antonio

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It's not as strong, but we think we can also MAYBE hear an "h sound" in nos une, almost coming out as 'no [h]une," and if that's true it supports the debuccalization theory. 

Further, he does not pronounce the "h" in humanos (just as he doesn't the one in hice)-- so clearly it's not the case that he is in the habit of pronouncing every "h" that starts a Spanish word.

A Dominican friend of ours tells us that not only does Antonio's pronunciation of "nos hace" sound perfectly natural to him, but that he can think of many similar "debuccalization" examples in Dominican speech. In fact, he thought that Antonio's Spanish sounds more like that of the Caribbean than (what he considers) that of Spain. This makes sense, because linguists tells us that early Canarian settlers in the region had a great amount of influence in what we know now as "Caribbean Spanish." 

No wonder Antonio feels right at home in Miami!

Spanish speakers in many regions are known for (in one way or another) reducing, softening, or "aspirating" their s's (or, as many frustrated learners would say, "dropping them" entirely). In fact, one of our resident experts, a guru of Spanish (though his students in Mexico City call him "professor"), told us that Antonio "is aspirating the s in nos, which could sound as if he were pronouncing the h in hace to someone who is not a native Spanish speaker." 

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Did you see the beautiful deck of playing cards drawn by Antonio Vargas, depicting the conquistadors as well as the four big historical tribes of Mexico (Maya, Olmec, Toltec, and Aztec)? He explains to us that, although very scholarly, the Mayans were no slouches on the battlefield:
 

Y también se ponían sus buenos catorrazos,

And they also gave good blows,

pero eran un pueblo de mucho conocimiento...

but they were a people of much knowledge...

Captions 39-40, Antonio Vargas - Artista - ilustración

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Have a look at one of our previous lessons,  —azo: a painful suffix, and you will learn that the suffix "-azo" gives the meaning "a blow/hit from." For example un palazo is a hit with a stick (palo) or a shovel (pala), and a tortazo is what you receive when you get in the way of a moving torta (cake)!

So what about these catorrazos that Antonio refers to, and that we translated simply as "blows"? Sources tell us that the root word is cate, a rather obscure Spanish word synonymous with golpe, and which itself means "hit" or "blow,"—which would give us a "blow" by way of a "hit" (or a hit by way of a blow). Obviously a bit redundant!

Catorrazo is very colloquial, and is primarily heard in Mexico. In actuality, bilingual dictionaries define it as simply a "punch," a "blow," or even "a hit with a stick or billy club."
 

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Here's an interesting tidbit: Since the word for "fist" is puño, we might be tempted to also try puñazo for "punch." However, the word you are most likely to hear (and what you will find in the dictionary) is slightly different, "puñetazo." However, puñazo is also seen occasionally, and, in Latin America, the word puño itself doubles for "punch" as well.

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Le encanta el poder y le atrapa la noche

She loves power and the night ensnares her

Caption 6, Chayanne - Lola

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The Spanish verb encantar literally means "to enchant" or "to delight greatly," so when Chayanne sings "le encanta el poder," he means to say that "power enchants her" or "power delights her." In English we would simply say "she loves power." If this looks a lot like the way we use gustar (to please) when we want to say someone "likes" something, that's because encantar belongs to a family of verbs known as "verbs like gustar." These verbs always take an indirect object pronoun, usually to refer to the person who in the English version would be the subject, and in this example the "le" is the indirect object pronoun (her), referring to "Lola."

Atrapar/"to trap; to ensnare" is NOT a "verb like gustar," but Chayanne, in the interest of lyrical flow, seems to be doing his best to set it up like one. First, notice he is putting the subject la noche/"the night," after the verb atrapa/"ensnares" (a bit unusual, but not incorrect). Secondly, he is referring to Lola using the indirect object pronoun "le," but in this case it is really acting as a direct object pronoun. You can tell because it answers the question "what?" about the verb ("The night ensnares 'what?' It ensnares her") rather than the question "to whom?" or "for whom?" which would call for an indirect object pronoun.

Note that, unlike indirect object pronouns, the direct object pronouns in Spanish DO have gender distinctions, "lo" for him and "la" for her. Chayanne could have expressed the same sentiment by putting the subject before the verb and using the proper direct object pronoun, making it clearer for most Spanish learners:

La noche la atrapa.
The night ensnares her.

Strictly speaking, "le" is not to be used as a direct object at all, but Chayanne, like a great many of his fellow Spanish speakers, IS using "le" as a direct object. The phenomenon of using the indirect object pronoun "le" (or its plural "les") where you technically should have used a direct object pronoun is known as "leísmo," and its use varies by region. It is common enough that it is not always heard as "wrong" by a great many Spanish speakers, and there are even a few cases where "le" is seen, even by the strictest grammar mavens, as an acceptable alternate to the "proper" direct object pronouns.

These "acceptable" cases of leísmo usually involve the substitution of "le" for the masculine direct object "lo," but Chayanne is substituting "le" for the feminine direct object "la"—which, while not entirely unknown in colloquial Spanish, is usually not considered "acceptable" by those with learned opinions on such matters (such as the RAE).
 

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Further reading:
https://www.thoughtco.com/leismo-and-related-variations-3079360
http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=leísmo

Carambola: more than tricky pool
 

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We already know Chayanne from the tv series Provócame, where he portrays a shy stable hand who also sings the show's sanguine theme song. Now we encounter his wilder side, singing about Lola, a jet-set party-loving socialite who might even be a bit dangerous:
 

Como disfrutas la carambola, Lola

How you enjoy deceit, Lola

Caption 15, Chayanne - Lola

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But how does carambola translate as "deceit?"

The usage evolves from a billiards shot (known in English as a cannon), whereby the cue ball ricochets off its target and hits a third ball, seemingly by chance, in a way that's beneficial to the player. The word comes from a pocket-less type of billiards known in English as carom billiards, and in Spanish as billar de carambolas (or just carambolas) where these types of rebounding shots are standard and can be amazing to watch.

So when someone (like Chayanne's Lola) plays her hand to achieve some benefit and makes it look like an accident, she is doing una carambola. A skillful billiards player bounces off one ball to hit another, and a skillful conman sets a trap that does not directly point back to him.

Estoy seguro que los políticos están haciendo carambola.
I'm sure that the politicians are doing something illicit.

However, not all uses of the term have negative overtones. Because the carambola shot appears to be fortuitous by happenstance, de carambola can also simply refer to chance, good luck, or "dumb luck."

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Vine a recoger unos papeles y me encontré con Camilo de carambola.
I came to pick up some papers and I found Camilo by chance.

Pateó al arco, el balón golpeó en un defensor y entró de carambola.
He kicked toward the goal; the ball hit a defender and went in by luck.

Spanish words that have an "s+consonant" near the beginning pretty much all start with an "e" as the first letter. Certainly you noticed that the language is "español" and not "spañol"? Or that the country from whence it all came is España (not Spaña)? Looking again to Calle 13 for clues, we hear:
 

Destápate, quítate el esmalte

Show yourself, remove your nail polish

Caption 3, Calle 13 - Atrévete-te-te

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In the word "esmalte" (nail polish), there is an "s+consonant" near the beginning of the word, but, in line with norms of Spanish, it is preceded by an "e."

Modern life causes "stress" in English speakers but Spanish speakers experience "estrés."  Why? It's because when this English word made its way into Spanish, it conformed to a typical Spanish pattern.  Likewise, when a shop that sells long bread rolls filled with meats and toppings opens up on Old San Juan, Residente and his buddies will no doubt be happy to grab "sandwiches" (or "saandweeches") at "Subway" (or "SOOBway"). The beginning "s" sounds in "subway" and in "sandwich" are no problem, because they are followed by vowels: "u" and "a", respectively --  a pattern Spanish speakers are well accustomed to. ¿Sí o no? -¡Supongo que sí!

Keep an ear open for Spanish words that begin with an "s" and with an "es." Does the theory fit? We hope so, or it will be an escándalo!

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Side note: On the other side of the coin, the "es + consonant" phenomenon runs so deep in Spanish-language phonetics, and so many English "s" words have a corresponding similar Spanish "es" word, that Spanish speakers learning English sometimes mistakenly that think that "es + consonant" is only a Spanish-language thing. This will lead them to say specially for especially, state for estate, and streme for extreme, thinking that the "e"s are a hangover from their Spanish pronunciation. You just have to remember Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy, the Cuban immigrant musician and bandleader who was always ready to admonish Lucille Ball's character with "Lucy! You've got some splainin' to do!"

Let's stop by the kitchen of the Di Carlo mansion, setting of preparations for the big gala in Muñeca Brava. The maids are very excited. They want to get a detailed description of how Mili looked as she made her Cinderella-like debut. Notice that Socorrito uses the imperfect tense of both ver (to look) and bajar (to go down, to lower, to descend) when she asks:

...Contame, contame,

...Tell me, tell me,

¿cómo se la veía cuando bajaba de la escalera?

how did she look as she was walking down the stairs?

Caption 1, Muñeca Brava - 41 La Fiesta

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If you've ever heard anything at all about the imperfect tense, it's that it applies to past actions that are not completed or that are ongoing. We see that quite clearly above in the case of bajaba; Mili "was walking down," an action that was ongoing at the time. However, another rule of the imperfect, one less bandied about, also comes into play here: the imperfect is employed when describing two or more simultaneous past actions. Socorrito wants to know how Mili "looked" (using the imperfect veía) as (at the same point in time) she was going down the stairs. 
 

With her usual enthusiasm, Mariposa definitely puts them in the moment when she answers:

Socorrito, ¡no sabe lo que era! Parecía una princesa.

Socorrito, you can't imagine! She looked like a princess.

Caption 2, Muñeca Brava - 41 La Fiesta

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There is yet another well-documented use of the imperfect that we can cite here: its use to "set the scene" or provide background information, especially at the beginning of a larger story. She uses the imperfect era (from ser, to be) when she says ¡no sabe lo que era! which literally translates to "you don't know how it was!" And she employs parecía (she looked like), which is an imperfect conjugation of parecer (to appear as/to look like/to seem like). Mariposa is setting the stage for the fairy tale taking place in the ballroom, and doing so in much the same way one would recite an actual fairy tale (which is no surprise if you remember that Muñeca Brava is a retelling of the Cinderella story).

The start of your average ghost tale or mystery story makes a good illustration of using the imperfect to paint a background picture:

Era una noche oscura y tormentosa, llovía y unos pájaros cantaban a lo lejos.
It was a dark and stormy night. It was raining and a few birds were singing from a distance.

[Note that in Spanish one can also use the past continuous tense, for example estaba lloviendo (it was raining) or estaban cantando (they were singing)—but it would not likely be used by native speakers when setting a scene or providing a backdrop. We'll look at the past continuous, aka past progressive, in a different lesson.]

More well-known to the average student of Spanish is the use of the imperfect to refer to a habitual or repeated action in the past. We saw an example of this in an earlier episode of Muñeca Brava when Milena says to Louise:

Sí, antes nos veíamos siempre.

Yes, we always used to see each other.

Caption 68, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta

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The other simple past tense in Spanish (called "simple" because its conjugations are only one word long) is known as preterite and is used for past actions that are completed and non-habitual. We find an example in a recent music video from The Krayolas:

Cuando yo la vi por primera vez me enamoré en un dos por tres

When I saw her for the first time I fell in love with her instantly

Captions 1-2, The Krayolas - Little Fox

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The singer uses the preterite vi (saw) instead of the imperfect veía (was seeing/used to see) because he is talking about a specific, completed instance of laying eyes on someone.

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Read more interesting things about the imperfect on the 123TeachMe site and be sure to visit Spaleon to master the imperfect conjugation of all verbs.

¿Hombres? Pero mirá que sos cínica, Martita, ¿eh?

Men? But you're quite shameless Martita, aren't you?

Captions 15-16, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta

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Pero no lo hace de mala, eh.

But she doesn't do it because she's mean.

De bruta que es, lo hace.

She does it because she's just stupid.

Captions 22-23, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta

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Mili is having it out with her fellow domestica, Marta, in La Muñeca brava, La apuesta, part 12. Mili calls Marta cínica and bruta. But Marta doesn’t look like a "brute" and we really don’t know her philosophical affiliations. So, what gives?

The words bruto and cínico share Latin roots with their English cousins “brute” and “cynical,” but they don’t mean exactly the same thing. As a matter of fact, they usually mean something else when used in Spanish. If you look at how we translated these words, you will find “stupid” for bruta, and “shameless” for cínica.

Both are adjectives that, when applied to human beings, can also be nouns. No seas bruta or bruto translates into English as “Don’t be stupid” or “[…] dense,” the idea being “as stupid or dense as an animal, a ‘brute.’ ” In Spanish, on the other hand, if you want to call someone a “brute,” you’d say he's an animal (“animal”) or bestia (“beast”): Ese animal quiso propasarse con mi prima. (“That brute tried to go too far with my cousin.”)

In English, “cynical” usually refers to a person who believes in nothing or is generally distrustful of people. “That critic is a real cynic. He never likes anything!” But for this critic to be cínico in Spanish, he would have another quality entirely: Ese critico es un verdadero cínico. Escribió una buena reseña de la obra sólo porque la actriz principal es su amante. “That critic has no shame. He wrote a good review of the play only because the leading lady is his lover.”

There is a Yiddish word, frequently used in English, that nails cínico right on the head: chutzpah. In Spanish it only has the negative sense, though, which according to Leo Rosten is “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery”. That’s the Spanish cínico in a nutshell. “Talk about chutzpah, the nerve of that guy!” ¡Qué cínico!

Notes:
Bruto and "brute" both have a shared root in the Latin "brutus" ("heavy, dull, stupid," later came to mean "associated with lower animals/beasts"). The English "brute" tends to associate more with the physicality aspect (strong yet not graceful) while the Spanish bruto tends to associate more with the mentality aspect (simple minded, ignorant, stupid), but there does exist some crossover in both languages.

Similarly, the Spanish cínico does at times take on a meaning very similar to the meaning we usually ascribe to "cynical" in English, and the reverse is also true. Their shared ancestry goes even deeper than the Latin "cynic," all the way back to the Greek "Kunikas."

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For further reading on cínico:
An excellent and very interesting deeper look at cínico and cynical:
https://life-in-translation.blogspot.com/2004/12/cynical-about-dictionaries.html

An expat in Chile discovers the cínico / cynical difference the hard way:
https://cachandochile.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/cynical-or-cinico/

Sí, pero mi poeta interno está completamente agotado.

Yes, but my internal poet is completely exhausted.

Caption 34, Romeo y Julieta - Episodio 59

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Romeo's school chum Dante has an acute problem with his inner poet. Listen to what he says: Sí, pero mi poeta interno está completamente agotado. “Yes, but my inner poet is all used up.” If you check the English subtitle, it says “exhausted,” which means the same thing, although it is a bit more literary.

Agotado ("used up," "tired out," "exhausted," or even “out of print,” when referring to a book) is the past participle of the verb agotar, which you may recall we discussed when Belinda "ran out of" hope in her song "Bella Traición." Agotar, literally, means “to extract all the liquid contained in a recipient,” or, in other words, "to squeeze to the very last drop."

The root of agotar is the noun gota, which means “drop,” as in una gota de agua (a drop of water). Perhaps you remember our friend David, a.k.a. Doctor Guacuco, when he prepared fresh clams for us?

Le echamos una gota de limón. Una gota de picante...

We add a drop of lemon. A drop of hot sauce...

Captions 11-12, Doctor Guacuco - Uno

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Agotar, the verb, when not discussing things like lemons and limes, is commonly employed in a figurative way, like when a mother scolds her child:

No me agotes la paciencia.
Don’t try my patience. [Don't make my patience run out.]

Or when something is no longer available:

Se agotaron las existencias de Tamiflu.
The supplies of Tamiflu ran out.

Los boletos para el concierto de Luis Miguel se agotaron en menos de una hora.
The tickets to the Luis Miguel concert sold out in less than an hour.

Ese libro está agotado.
That book is out of print.

Or when there are no more ideas:

Hemos agotado todas las posibilidades.
We have exhausted all the possibilities.

Or even when a person has run out of energy:

¡Estoy agotado!
“I’m exhausted!” in the sense of “I’m bushed” or “I’m tired out.”

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So Dante's inner poet is exhausted, it's all used up: se agotó. Too bad. The good thing is that what can be emptied can always be refilled. For that, he needs only inspiración, and from the looks of the young ladies that he surrounds himself with, that won’t be hard to get: No se le agotarán las oportunidades. (“His opportunities will never dry up.”)

Dime por favor quién me mandó quererte.

Tell me, please, who told me to love you [why should I love you?].

Caption 1, Romeo y Julieta - Episodio 59

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Romeo wants to know who in the world asked him to love Julieta: Dime, por favor, quién me mandó quererte.  "Tell me, please, who told me to love you." It's a rhetorical question. Nobody asked him to love her, so why should he?

Perhaps you are familiar with the verb mandar, meaning "to send." Many Spanish learners (and even many native speakers) are likely to be tempted to translate quién me mandó quererte as "who sent me to love you." But there is another meaning of mandar, which is "to order" or "to tell" (someone to do something), and this is the meaning that Spanish grammarians inform us comes into play when the construction is mandar + infinitive.

A Pedro lo mandé traer un litro de leche.
I told Pedro to bring a liter of milk.

If Romeo had wanted to say "Tell me who sent me to love you," he would have had to put an a before the infinitive, Dime quién me mandó a quererte. The construction mandar a + infinitive means "to send" (someone to do something).

A Pedro lo mandé a traer un litro de leche.
I sent Pedro to bring [back] a liter of milk.

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Since the meanings are so close, it is only natural that in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world people use mandar and mandar + a indistinctly. In other words, they no longer differentiate between the two. Something similar is happening with deber and deber + de, remember? But it is a good idea to learn the rule while understanding that it doesn't always hold up. Like many other things having to do with rules and life!

Aleks Syntek has a real problem. He sings:

Yo no sé qué sucedió

I don't know what happened

Caption 1, Aleks Syntek - Intocable

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There are various words and phrases one can use in Spanish to say that something “happens.” The most common verb is pasar. Aleks could have sung Yo no sé qué pasó, and nobody would have blinked. If you saw a friend’s dog lying motionless with his tongue hanging out, you would probably ask:

¿Qué le pasó a tu perro?
What happened to your dog?

If you said:

¿Qué le sucedió a tu perro?, it would mean the same thing but it would sound a tad literary. They are both great words, but it’s always a good idea to use the most common word first (pasar) and save the less-used word as a synonym (suceder).

Be careful, though. Suceder does not only mean “to happen.” The same goes for pasar. Take this sentence, for example:

Benedicto sucedió a Juan Pablo en el trono papal.
Benedicto succeeded John Paul on the papal throne.

Here sucedió means “succeeded” in the sense of “to come next after” or “to replace”. But it does not mean “to be successful”. To say this in Spanish, you would use the phrase tener éxito:

¡Yo nunca tengo éxito!
I never succeed.

Remember that éxito has nothing to do with an "exit." “Exit” is salida.

Pasar can mean several things as well. In the imperative, it means “Go ahead!”

¡Pase por aquí, por favor!
Come [or Go] this way, please!

And when you can’t tolerate or put up with something or someone, when you can’t “suffer” him or her, the verb pasar is also a good choice:

A ese tonto no lo paso.
I don't stand that fool.

The verb pasar has dozens of meanings but let’s wrap this up: it can also mean “to swallow.” In this sense one usually uses it reflexively. If a child procrastinates at the table, with food in his mouth, his mother might raise her voice, saying:

¡Ya pásatelo!
Swallow it already!

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Without the reflexive particle te, it would mean “Pass it over!” or “Pass it on!”, which is not the same thing.

So, now you know what happened, lo que pasó or lo que sucedió. But Aleks Syntek is still out of the loop… Poor guy!

When it’s over, it’s over. It’s like in Aleks Syntek’s song "Intocable" (Untouchable), where the poor guy was dumped and ends up consoling himself by singing:

Si en el juego del amor

If in the game of love

ahora soy el perdedor

now I'm the loser

debo salir adelante

I must move on

Captions 4-6, Aleks Syntek - Intocable

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In Spanish, when we want to express an obligation or a responsibility, we use the verb deber, properly conjugated of course, followed by the infinitive of the verb denoting the action that we must carry out.

Debo hacer mi tarea.
I must do my homework.

Debiste haberme avisado.

You should have warned me OR you should have told me in advance.

"Deber + infinitive" vs. "tener que + infinitive"

"Deber + infinitive" tends to imply a sense of *internal* obligation, whereas "tener que + infinitive," which is extremely common and very close in meaning, tends to convey a sense of *external* obligation.

Emilio debe levantar su ropa sucia.
Emilio should pick up his dirty clothes. (For his own good and that of the household.)

Emilio tiene que levantar su ropa sucia.
Emilio must/has to pick up his dirty clothes. (Or his mother will ground him.)

So any time you want to express a sense of responsibility or obligation, especially one that stems of an internal sense of duty, just conjugate the verb deber and then add the infinitive of the action verb.
 

Sé que no será fácil pero debo confesarle la verdad.

I know it won't be easy but I must confess the truth.

"Deber de + infinitive"

But hold on there for a minute! A little later in the song, Syntek changes the syntax around considerably by singing:

Debes confundida estar

You must be confused

Caption 13, Aleks Syntek - Intocable

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Actually two things are happening simultaneously, so you should be patient and bear with us! (¡Debes ser paciente y aguantarnos!)

First of all, the syntax. Normally, one would say, sing or write:

Debes estar confundida. 
You must be confused.

He turned the sentence on its head so this line Debes confundida estar would rhyme with the next one:

Terminar por terminar
To break up for the sake of breaking up

The second thing here is a finer point of Spanish grammar. When one wants to give the listener or reader the idea of probability, one also uses the verb deber, but before the infinitive, one should also include the preposition de. Technically, this is what Aleks Syntek should have sung:
 

Confundida debes de estar.
You must be [probably are] confused.

Denisse Guerrero makes the opposite error (adding "de" where she should have left it out) when she sings "Lo siento, niño, debo de partir" (I'm sorry, boy, I must leave) in line 27 of the Belanova video "Niño":

Lo siento, niño, debo de partir

I'm sorry, boy, I must leave

Caption 27, Belanova - Niño

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Strictly speaking, she should have simply sung "debo partir" (I must leave). But we are not out to pick on pop stars*!

A confusing matter

Many native speakers, both in Spain and Latin America, are not consciously aware of this difference and tend to sweep it under the rug, which is unfortunate because there is a huge difference between responsibility or obligation, and probability.

Check out these two sentences, which mean two different things:
 

Aleks Syntek debió de entender la diferencia.
Aleks Syntek probably understood the difference. (That is the most likely scenario.)

Aleks Syntek debió entender la diferencia.
Aleks Syntek should have understood the difference. (Because it was his obligation or responsibility.)

See what we mean? Let’s chalk it up to the poor girl’s unfortunate decision to leave him, when debió quedarse con él (“she should have stayed with him”). But there’s no accounting for taste.

*At least one pop diva wasn't daydreaming during her grammar lessons. Natalia Oreiro, as eloquent as she is lovely, correctly uses "deber de + infinitive" when she says:

Más que sentirme mal yo,

More than feeling badly myself,

imagínate cómo se deben de sentir ellos.

imagine how they must feel.

Captions 40-41, Biografía - Natalia Oreiro

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That's it for today. We hope you find this lesson useful and we invite you to send us your comments and suggestions.

Es contigo, mi vida, con quien puedo sentir... Que merece la pena vivir

It's with you, my honey, with whom I can feel... That life is worth living

Captions 7-8, Julieta Venegas - El Presente

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A few more examples:

If you've ever been to Spain, you know that ¿Vale? (OK?) or Vale. (OK.) is slang that is thrown around a lot amongst Spaniards. ¿Vale?

How would we treat quién if Julia were to have made her statement positive?

As it turns out, an accent is still required, even though most English speakers would not consider this an indirect question. You might look at this as a case where an indirect question is present, but it is being answered. The highly respected María Moliner dictionary calls this type of usage aclaratoria (explanatory). Note that there is still no noun or pronoun present to which quién is referring, so it is not behaving as a relative pronoun.

Like other interrogative pronouns, quién also retains the tilde when used in exclamatory way. (You will notice that these "quién" exclamations don't translate to English literally.)

¡Quién pudiera tener tus ojos!
If I only had your eyes!

¡Quién te escuchara todas las bobadas que estás diciendo!
If only the rest of the world could hear all the stupid things you are saying!

So, are there cases where quien doesn't relate to a nearby noun or pronoun, but still doesn't take an accent? Yes, when the "who" refers to some non-specific person, and so is taking on the role of "indefinite pronoun."

Quien mucho habla, no tiene nada que decir.
The person/a person who speaks a lot has nothing to say.

In this same vein, the phrase como quien means "like a person who" or "like someone who," sometimes best translated into English with "as if he/she [were someone he/she is not]":

Él contestó el interrogatorio como quien nunca hubiera conocido a la víctima.
He answered the interrogation like someone who (as if he [was someone who]) never had met the victim.

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And, in another "indefinite" role, quien can also be used in place of nadie que (nobody that / nobody who) in phrases like this one:

No hay quien me detenga.
There is not anybody who can stop me. / There is nobody who can stop me.
[In English we can't have the double negative]

Poor Mili! She's caught between scheming Ivo and his grandmother, who have cooked up a plan to turn her from un desastre into a more refined woman. When Mili protests to the grandmother, she takes Ivo's side:
 

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Mi nieto tiene razón. Vos sos una muchacha en estado... digamos... casi salvaje.

My grandson is right. You're a girl in a state that is... let's say... almost savage.

Captions 76-77, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta - Part 6

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Por primera vez, la mariposa tiene razón.

For the first time, the butterfly is right.

Caption 12, Muñeca Brava - 9 - Engaños - Part 5

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While tiene razón literally means "has reason," it is best translated as "is right."

Here's another example of tener + razón

Juan tenía razón, necesitábamos mejores atacantes.
Juan was right, we needed better forwards [soccer].

Sometimes you will see tener + la razón. The meaning is the same: "to be right."

En lo que respecta a mi casa, mi esposa cree que siempre tiene la razón.
As far as my house goes, my wife believes that she is always right.

But what if you literally want to say "he has reason," as in this example?

He has reason to believe Annie will get an A.
(perhaps she is smart, she got an A last semester, the teacher likes her, etc.)

In this case we want to employ either the phrase "tener razones para" or "tener motivos para":

Él tiene razones para creer que Annie va a sacar un A.
He has reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.

Él tiene motivos para creer Annie va a sacar un A.
He has reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.

Also, as we touched upon in a previous lesson, "tener por qué" also means "to have reason," but you will find it used mostly in the negative sense:

Él no tiene por qué creer que Annie va a sacar un A.
He has no reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.

No tengo por qué quejarme.

I have no reason to complain.

No tengo por qué contarte mis secretos.

I have no reason to tell you my secrets.

No tienes por qué preocuparte.

You have no reason to worry.

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On rare occasions, you will come across "tener por qué" used in the positive sense:

Ellos tienen por qué luchar.
They have reason to struggle.

To tell the tale of Speedy, A.B. Quintanilla starts, "Érase una vez" -- which means "Once upon a time." Hearing these words, listeners instantly know we are entering fairy-tale territory. "Érase una vez" or  "érase que se era" or "había una vez" are all ways to set up a fictional tale in Spanish, just like "once upon a time" in English. It's a fairy-tale convention.

Érase una vez, en un "little tiny" pueblito,

Once upon a time, in a little tiny town,

Caption 2, A. B. Quintanilla - Speedy Gonzalez

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Another convention we're all familiar with is the ending "And they lived happily ever after." In Spanish, you may hear: "Vivieron felices y comieron perdices" -- which a more literal translation would render "they lived happily and ate partridges." You see, partridges (perdices) are considered delicacies, so eating them signifies the good life. Plus, it rhymes.

Let's end on another rhyming note:

"Colorín, colorado... este cuento se ha acabado".

"Snip, snap, snout... this tale's told out" [Literally: Red, red-colored... this tale has ended"].

Caption 62, Cleer - El patito feo

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So to sign off this lesson, let's just say:
Y colorín colorado
esta lección se ha acabado.