Quote:
Originally Posted by mikemacabre
le - you, him, it, her, to her
se - themselves, itself, himself, herself, yourself, oneself, self, yourselves
me - me, myself
Pero si dejas de importarme - But if you stop caring
Es tu turno de ENTENDER - It's your turn to UNDERSTAND.
|
Not quite, but you learned a few things.
When a Spanish verb appears in a dictionary with '
se' as a suffix, that means it's a pronominal verb. The verb may be reflexive (subject and object are one in the same) or reciprocating (subject and object act on each other - they reciprocate). (There are also pronominal verbs that are 'idiomatic' in usage - their meaning is different than when not used pronominally.) The pronouns used with pronominal verbs are known as 'reflexive' pronouns. You listed '
me' and '
se', above. The others you didn't list are '
te', '
nos', and '
os'. All this said, your example isn't using a pronominal verb.
When a Spanish verb appears in a dictionary with 'le' as a suffix, this indicates that the verb is used in a phrase that contains an indirect object pronoun. You correctly listed '
le' above (but may want to add 'to' to each of the English translations). The other indirect object pronouns are '
me', '
te', '
nos', '
os' and '
les'. ('
Se' is also an indirect object pronoun, but is only used to replace '
le' or '
les' when a direct object pronoun is also present.)
Have a look
here to see
all the pronouns used in Spanish, but don't get overwhelmed. Just look at the indirect object pronouns (labeled 'dative' in the table) for now. (If you want to take a peek at the reflexive pronouns, they're near the bottom of that page.
)
Now, getting back to your example, you haven't translated the indirect object and you decided to translate
importar as 'care' instead of 'be important' or 'matter'. In this case, that isn't the best option.
'
Importarle' is the infinitive form (the one found in good dictionaries that list phrases), as you were able to find in our dictionary. The form in your example is also an infinitive, but the appropriate pronoun ('
me') has been suffixed. If the infinitive were conjugated, the pronoun would be placed prior to the conjugated verb. Here are some
conjugated examples of
importarle:
me importa = it matters to me | it's important to me
no te importa = it doesn't matter to you | it isn't important to you
le importa a él = it matters to him | it's important to him
no le importa a ella = it doesn't matter to her | it's not important to her
le importa a usted = it matters to you | it's important to you
nos importa = it matters to us | it's important to us
os importa = it matters to you | it's important to you
les importa a ellos = it matters to them | it's important to them
les importa a ellas = it matter to them | it's important to them
no les importa a ustedes = it doesn't matter to you | it isn't important to you
So, if we use 'be important' as the translation of the infinitive '
importar', and add the suffixed indirect object pronoun '
me', the translation becomes 'be important to me'.
And, since '
dejar de + infinitive' means 'stop ___ing', the translation of '
dejar de importar' is 'stop being important'. Now let's add the suffixed indirect object pronoun to the mix. This yields 'stop being important to me'. 'Matter' is another way to say 'be important', so we could also translate '
dejar de importarme' as 'stop mattering to me'.
Pero si dejas de importarme = But if you stop being important to me -or-
But if you stop mattering to me