Salir vs. dejar
 

After a conversation with some students yesterday and some glimpses at a dictionary, I'm rather confused about the difference between the uses of the words "salir" and "dejar". I wanted to use "salir" to talk about leaving the classroom, and these students all insisted that the correct word is "dejar".

So ... which is the correct word when I want to talk about leaving a room?

And can someone give me various examples of when each of the two words is used?

Gracias de antemano. :)

Dejar un lugar ≈ salir de un lugar = go out from a place

"Dejar un lugar" is not used so often though.


Salgan del salón en orden.
Go orderly out of the classroom.


No dejamos el estadio hasta que acabamos con la cerveza.
We didn't leave the stadium until we finished all the beer off.

No salimos del estadio hasta que acabamos con la cerveza.
We didn't go out from the stadium until we finished all the beer off.


Todos dejaron el cuarto cuando entraron los doctores.
Everyone left the room when the doctors came in.

Todos salieron del cuarto cuando entraron los doctores.
Everyone went out of the room when doctors came in.


¿Por qué dejaste la conferencia tan pronto?
Why did you leave the conference so soon?

¿Por qué (te) saliste de la conferencia tan pronto?
Why did you go out from the conference so soon?

I'll have go, but I might get shot down in flames.

dejar is a transitive verb - it has a direct object
salir is intransitive - it has no direct object

If you leave something, say leaving the room, you have an object so you use dejar. But if you are just leaving in the sense of going away, you use salir.

¿dónde dejaste el coche? - where did you leave the car?
dejó a los niños en el colegio - she dropped the children off at school
quiere dejar el ballet - he wants to give up ballet

¿a qué hora sale el tren? - what time does the train leave?
salgo de casa a las siete - I leave home at seven
no salgas sin abrigo - don't go out without a coat

How am I doing? :) Edit: Dang, pipped at the post.

So, to use "let out" instead of "leave" is wrong, right?

Yes, probably - "let out" is transitive, "leave" is both transitive and intransitive, and they mean different things anyway. I'm not sure I understand you.:thinking:

The interesting thing is that I've been polling my students throughout the day, and almost all of them say to use "salir". It was just this group of sisters (triplets) who grew up in Guadalahara (Mexico) who insist that it was "dejar".

The OTHER interesting thing is that when we started talking about "dejar", the one of the triplets had a zillion questions for me about the word "leave". I never actually *said* the word "leave" in English. But for some reason they were having some difficulty wrapping their arms around the idea of "leave". (They've only been in the US for about 10 months...)

Hmmm....

(Thanks for the input, everyone! I LOVE all of the examples!!)

Outstanding work Perikles. Now perhaps you can explain llevar and traer.
I know it's take and bring but sometimes take and bring are synonymous
in English, and I suspect that they are not in Spanish.

OK I'll take the bait, but in a new thread. Mañana.:)

There's actually a word for "leave"?! Bah! My spanish teacher lied!

...okay, so she didn't *lie*. Just omitted it. And probably because, as mentioned, it's not as common to use.

I just noticed that wordreference.com shows both the present and past-pret. form of 'salir' (Nosotros) as 'salimos'. How do you tell the difference? Context?

Yes. The same is true of most -ar and -ir verbs.