Spanish Reflexive Verbs and Pronouns

by Alex Heath · 2021-08-27

Spanish reflexive verbs and reflexive pronouns are two intrinsically related grammatical concepts. In this article, you will learn all about their relationship, uses, forms, and some examples.

Reflexive Spanish

Ready to start? Let’s dive into verbos and pronombres reflexivos!

According to the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (Real Academia de la Lengua Española), the Castilian term ‘reflexivo’ comes from the Latin «reflectĕre», which means “to go back” (volver hacia atrás).

Therefore, as the name indicates, reflexive pronouns can be identified because they indicate that the expressed action looks backs to the subject.

These would be the equivalent of the English reflexive pronouns such as ‘myself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘oneself’, ‘themselves’, and ‘yourselves’. These can be recognized by the endings –self and –selves!

ENGLISH
PERSON	REFLEXIVE PRONOUN
I	Myself
You	Yourself
He	Himself
She	Herself
It	Itself
We	Ourselves
You (plural)	Yourselves
They	Themselves

Example:

She wanted to impress her boyfriend, so she cooked dinner for their date night herself.
The boy is a genius. Instead of going to music school, he taught himself.

Reflexive Pronouns Spanish

Spanish reflexive pronouns are types of words that are used in conjunction with verbs to show that a person or something is performing an action for herself or itself in the same clause.

In this list, the Spanish reflexive pronouns are marked in BOLD. Remember that every time you use a reflexive pronoun it must match the number and gender of the person!

SINGULAR
First person	I	Yo	Me
Second person	You	Tú	Te
Vos	Te
Usted (formal)	Se
Third person	She/he	Ella/él	Se
PLURAL
First person	We	Nosotros	Nos
Second person	You	Vosotros	Os
Ustedes	Se
Third person	They	Ellos/ellas	Se

Reflexive Verbs and Pronouns Relationship

Reflexive pronouns are used with reflexive verbs to point out that the direct object is also the subject. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, this means that the person is performing the action expressed by the verb on herself.

A simple affirmative statement sentence structure would look like this:

NOUN + REFLEXIVE PRONOUN + REFLEXIVE VERB

Example:

María se lava los dientes. -> María brushes her teeth.
La abuela se peina el cabello con un cepillo de marfil. ->Grandma combs her hair with an ivory brush.

But sometimes the noun can be completely omitted.

Example:

(Yo) Me cepillo la piel en seco todos los días. -> I dry brush my skin every day.
Ayer nos bañamos en la tina. -> Yesterday we bathed in the tub.

Reflexive verbs always require a reflexive pronoun! Practice the conjugation with the reflexive verb ‘duchar’ (to shower).

PERSONAL PRONOUN	REFLEXIVE PRONOUN	REFLEXIVE VERB
Yo	Me	Ducho
Tú	Te	Duchas
Vos	Te	Duchas
Usted	Se	Ducha
Ella/él	Se	Ducha
Nosotros	Nos	Duchamos
Vosotros	Os	Ducháis
Ustedes	Se	Duchan
Ellos/ellas	Se	Duchan

Nonetheless, Castilian can be a bit tricky!

For instance, the sentence “She wanted to impress her boyfriend, so she cooked dinner herself.” could be translated to Spanish in several ways:

Quería impresionar a su novio, así que ella preparó la cena.
Quería impresionar a su novio, así que ella sola preparó la cena.
Quería impresionar a su novio, así que ella misma preparó la cena.

Here the last option being the most appropriate.

Notice how none of the above include the Spanish reflexive pronoun ‘se’ (pertaining the third person singular ‘ella’); if it had, the meaning would completely change.

Example:

Quería impresionar a su novio, así que se preparó la cena.

‘Se preparó la cena’ means that she prepared dinner only for her, excluding the boyfriend from the equation, and making no sense!

The correct translation would be the expression ‘ella misma’.

Quería impresionar a su novio, así que ella misma preparó la cena.

Therefore, to avoid confusion, a reflexive pronoun in English is often translated to Spanish with the complement ‘a sí mismo’, but it only works when the subject is the one who actually performs the action.

Example:

He convinced himself that he could win. -> Se convenció a sí mismo de que podía ganar.

In colloquial Spanish you can find the use of the phrase ‘ella sola’ or ‘él solo’ in substitution of ‘por sí mismo’, or even ‘por sí solo’.

Example:

The boy is a genius, he never went to music school, he himself learned to play the guitar with his father’s old books.

El niño es un genio, nunca fue a la escuela de música, él solo aprendió a tocar la guitarra con los libros viejos de su padre.
El niño es un genio, nunca fue a la escuela de música, aprendió por sí mismo a tocar la guitarra con los libros viejos de su padre.
El niño es un genio, nunca fue a la escuela de música, aprendió por sí solo a tocar la guitarra con los libros viejos de su padre.

Finally, it is also common to come across expressions with the reflexive form of ‘se’ before another reflexive pronoun such as ‘me’.

Example:

Se me olvidó que teníamos examen y no estudié. -> I forgot we had an exam and I didn’t study.

The correct grammar would be:

Olvidé que teníamos examen y no estudié.

And you can even find this kind of mistaken combinations:

Yo misma me saboteo. -> I sabotage myself.

The right way of using a reflexive pronoun and a reflexive verb in this sentence is:

Me saboteo a mí misma.