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No puedo entender esto

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Esperar
November 14, 2011, 01:57 PM
Cepillense los dientes de acostarse.

Sé que tiene el sentido, "brush your teeth before you go to bed." but I'm having problems understanding why it's refering to the particular person the order is targeting I looked on the website, and cepillen comes up as ellos, not tú.

Rusty
November 14, 2011, 02:31 PM
Cepíllense los dientes antes de acostarse.

Sé que tiene el sentido, "brush your teeth before you go to bed," but I'm having problems understanding why it's refering to the particular person the command targets. I looked on the website, and cepillen comes up as ellos, not tú.The third person plural ustedes also means 'you'. ;)

All of the following are possible translations of the English sentence you wrote (the person is not specific enough in English to give only one translation):
Tú (singular, familiar): Cepíllate los dientes ...
Usted (singular, formal): Cepíllese los dientes ...
Vosotros (plural, familiar): Cepillaos los dientes ...
Ustedes (plural, formal): Cepíllense los dientes ...

In Latin America, vosotros isn't used, so the plural of tú becomes ustedes, which is a third-person pronoun. In Spain, the plural of tú is vosotros.

Helpful?

Esperar
November 15, 2011, 02:55 PM
So basically, it means, YOU ALL brush your teeth?

Rusty
November 15, 2011, 03:10 PM
If you want to think of it that way, yes.

Technically, though, since this is a command, the subject is not said at all in English.
The command "Brush your teeth" is valid for addressing a single person as well as two or more persons.

The plural of 'you' is 'you'.

Esperar
November 16, 2011, 12:42 PM
Thanks. I thought the book I am learning from is Spanish from Spain, but I now think it's American Spanish. This confused me loads.