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If you want to see related content, you might be interested in this article about how to order food in a restaurant.
Hey there! Are you having trouble understanding the differences between quedar and quedarse? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! These two Spanish verbs may sound similar, but they have very different meanings.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into one basic difference between quedar and quedarse and give you some examples to help you understand how to use them correctly.
One of the meanings of QUEDAR is to arrange an informal date with someone at a certain time or place.
| Can we meet at 8 pm? | ¿Quedamos a las 20h? |
| Where can we meet? | ¿Dónde quedamos? |
Another meaning of QUEDAR is the act of meeting someone, and usually in this case, the verb is accompanied by the preposition “con”:
| I’m going to meet María on Saturday | Voy a quedar con Maria, el sábado |
| I usually meet Juan on Monday afternoons | Normalmente quedo con Juan los lunes. |
One of the meanings of QUEDARSE is ‘to stay’ or ‘to remain’ in the sense of ‘to remain in a place’.
Choose the right verb form for each sentence
In today’s lesson, we will introduce the basic vocabulary and expressions for making physical descriptions in Spanish in a very simple way. You will learn how to describe people in Spanish with a very few verbs and some common adjectives. There are helpful activities at the end of the lesson to practice as well. Ready?
She is a very pretty girl. She is a brunette with curly hair and black eyes. | This boy is brown, has brown eyes, wears glasses and beard. | This girl is blond, she has blue eyes. She wears two braids, she wears a pink T-shirt. |
As you can see in the examples, to describe physical appearance of people in Spanish we mainly use three verbs:
SER “to be” in English
TENER “to have” in English
LLEVAR “to wear” in English
Now let’s look at the possible combinations with each of these verbs.
We use the verb SER, “to be” in English to talk about natural or permanent physical characteristics. The formula is: Tener (conjugated) + adjective.
| Alto-a / Bajo-a | Short / Tall | Delgado-a / Gordo-a | Thin / fat |
| Feo-a / Guapo-a | Ugly / handsome – Pretty | Mayor / Joven | Old / Young |
| Calvo-a | bald | Moreno-a | dark-haired dark-skinned |
| Castaño-a | brown-haired | Rubio-a | blond |
| Pelirrojo-a | red-haired |
Notice that these adjectives must agree with the person in gender (feminine and masculine) and number (singular or plural).
La chica es guapa / Las chicas son guapas.
El chico es guapo / Los chicos son guapos.
Usually to softer negative adjectives we place before the adjective : ” un poco” = “a bit”.
El chico es un poco feo.
La chica es un poco gorda /gordita.
To describe the hair, eyes, nose and other parts of the body of people in Spanish, we use the irregular verb TENER. The formula is: Tener (conjugated) + noun + adjective.
| Pelo rizado | Curly hair | Pelo ondulado | Wavy hair | Pelo liso | Straight hair |
| Pelo corto | Short hair | Pelo largo | Long hair | Pelo recogido | hair up |
| Pelo suelto | hair down | Pelo moreno | dark hair | Pelo castaño | Brown hair |
| Pelo rubio | blond hair | Pelo pelirrojo | red hair | Pelo canoso / teñido | grey hair dyed hair |
The word for hair (el pelo) is masculine and singular, so the adjectives to describe hair must agree with the word pelo by also being masculine and singular and not with the person you are describing.
Ella tiene el pelo pelirrojo.
Él tiene el pelo pelirrojo
| Ojos negros | Black eyes | Ojos marrones | Brown eyes |
| Ojos verdes | Green eyes | Ojos azules | Blue eyes |
| Nariz grande / pequeña | Big / Small nose | Un lunar / Pecas | beauty mark / Freckles |
The word for eyes (los ojos) is masculine and plural, so the adjectives to describe eyes must also be masculine and plural.
Ella tiene los ojos verdes
Notice that there are the two different words for brown: “marrón” and “castaño“
Use “marrones” when talking about eye colour and “castaño” when talking about hair colour.
Mi madre tiene los ojos marrones / My mother has brown eyes.
Yo tengo el pelo castaño / I have brown hair.
We use the verb “LLEVAR” to talk about physical characteristics that can change according to fashion or to talk about accessories and clothes that we can wear.
| Coleta | ponytail | Trenzas | plaits |
| Perilla | goatee | Bigote | moustache |
| Barba | beard | Pendientes | earrings |
| Gafas | glasses | Collar | necklace |
| Camiseta | T-shirt | Pantalón | trousers |
Download and print out this infographic (PDF document) and practice at your own pace.
That is all! I hope you’ve learned a lot, and you enjoyed this lesson! If you Liked it, maybe you could be interested in this article: How to describe people’s personality in Spanish
If you live in Spain or a Spanish-speaking country, this article is going to be very useful for you. You are going to learn how to suggest plans or activities to your family or friends. You will also learn how to accept or reject plans politely and the vocabulary for some leisure activities. Not only that, but you will find some interactive exercises to practice at the end of the article.
– ¿Te apetece ir al cine?
-Vale, ¿qué peli vemos?
– No sé, creo que hay una nueva de Pedro Almodóvar que puede estar bien. ¿Miramos la cartelera?
– Sí, mejor.
Vale / Fine, right, OK
De acuerdo / All right
Sí, claro / Yes of course
Me parece bien/ That’s fine
Lo siento, no puedo, es que…. / Sorry but I can’t, it’s just that…
No me apetece mucho, es que… / I don’t feel like it, it’s just…
Gracias, pero no puedo, es que… / Thanks, but I can’t, it’s just that…
Ir al cine / To go to the cinema
Ir a un concierto / To go to a concert
Ir a una exposición / To go to an exhibition
Ir de excursión / To go hiking / To hike
Ir a un restaurante / To go to a restaurant
Ir de compras / To go to shopping
Ir a tomar algo / To go for a drink
Ir a bailar / To go dancing
In this article, we will explore the regular conjugation of the preterit tense in Spanish, learning when to use it and how to conjugate it for regular verbs. Additionally, there are three interactive exercises for you to practice. Start talking about the past in Spanish!
The ‘pretérito indefinido’ is used to talk about an action that happened at a specific moment in the past. (We know the beginning and end of that action).
| I worked for two years in that company | Yesterday we flew to Rio de Janeiro |
“Remember: if the action happened in the past, and you can determine exactly when it occurred and how many times, then you have to use the ‘pretérito indefinido’.”
It’s used to talk about consecutive actions in the past.
| “I got up and had breakfast, then I got dressed and went out onto the street.” |
It’s used in biographies to list facts.
| Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, lived in Madrid, and wrote ‘Don Quijote’ in 1605. | Pablo Picasso lived in different cities, visited Paris in 1900, and painted ‘Guernica’ during the Spanish Civil War. |
It is used with temporary markers as:
EXAMPLES
Ayer salí por la noche con mis amigos. (Yesterday)
Nací el 18 de junio de 1979 en Valencia.
Anteayer cenamos en un restaurante muy bueno. (The day before yesterday)
Hace 2 semanas compré un nuevo sofá bastante cómodo. (Two weeks ago)
Ana se mudó a Madrid hace 3 años. (Three weeks ago)
La semana pasada Ana y yo visitamos a mi abuela dos veces. (The last week)
El domingo pasado cociné una paella para mis amigos ingleses (The last sunday)
El lunes mi hermana llevó a su hijo al médico. (the last Monday)
The conjugation of regular verbs in the past simple tense in Spanish is easy. There are only two groups of regular verbs: those that end in (-AR) and those that end in (-ER) or (-IR).
Second conjugation (-ER) and third conjugation (-IR) share the same endings:
(-i, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron)
The conjugated verbs in the first person (yo) and the third person (él / ella / usted) carry a stress accent on the last syllable.
Yo bailé, comí, viví
Él bailó, comió, vivió
In the past simple, the first-person plural (nosotros) conjugation of verbs ending in -AR and -IR (first and third conjugation) is the same as the first-person plural (nosotros) of the present indicative tense.
| PRESENT TENSE in Spanish = PAST SIMPLE in Spanish |
| (AR) nosotros bailamos |
| (IR) nosotros vivimos |
In today’s lesson we will study the near future in Spanish “El futuro próximo”.
This tense is very common in Spanish, It is used to express actions and intentions in the near future and is similar to the English future simple with “going to.”
When we talk about what we are going to do shortly (soon).
We use the ir + a + infinitive formula.
This could include things that you’re going to do in 5 minutes or 5 days. It all depends on your definition of “soon.” Either way, the near future is the appropriate tense to use to refer to current plans or intentions for the future. It is also used to refer to something that, due to present circumstances, seems certain to happen.
The near future in Spanish is formed with the present tense forms of the verb “IR ” (to go) + the preposition “a” followed by the infinitive of the main verb.
In this verbal periphrasis, the verb IR (to go) loses its literal meaning to exclusively indicate the intention of the speaker to do something at a time close to the moment of speech.
English speakers should find the futuro próximo (the near future in Spanish) easy to handle, as the future with going in English presents a similar structure.
| PersonaI pronoun | Present continuous of to go | Infinitive of the main verb |
| I | am going | to work |
| Yo | voy | a trabajar |
EXAMPLES
Vamos a ver una peli antes de dormir. / We are going to watch a film before sleeping.
Mañana voy a descansar todo el día. / Tomorrow I am going to rest all day long.
This is all, if you found this article useful, please share it with other Spanish students. Thanks 😉
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