UNIT FOURTEEN
Reflexive verbs
Reflexive verbs are nomally used for actions that the subject performs to ‘him/herself’,
e.g. ‘I wash (myself)’, ‘I wake (myself)’. In other words the subject and the object of the
verb are the same. Remember that in English, however, the ‘myself/yourself’, etc. are
often implicit rather than stated, thus we would usually say ‘I washed’ with the ‘myself’
being implicit in the lack of any other direct object.
In Spanish the use of reflexive verbs is much more common and the reflexive pronoun
must be used:
Me lavo. Se despierta.
I wash (myself). He wakes (himself).
but
Lavo el coche. Despierta a los niños.
I wash the car. He wakes the children.
The form of the reflexive verb in Spanish is as follows:
me lavo I wash (myself)
te lavas you wash (yourself)
se lava he/she washes (himself/herself)
you wash (yourself)
nos lavamos we wash (ourselves)
os laváis you wash (yourselves)
se lavan they wash (themselves)
you wash (yourselves)
The pronoun is placed in front of the verb in the present tense. But as we saw in Unit 11,
pronouns are normally placed at the end of certain parts of the verb, notably the
infinitive, the gerund (see Unit 15) and the imperative, which will be dealt with at a later
stage.
e.g. Voy a lavarme.
I am going to wash (myself).
Tenemos que despertarnos.
We have to wake up.
Other common reflexive verbs are: