Friday, March 13, 2020
How To Say Lets in Spanish
How To Say Let's in Spanish Spanish has two main ways of making suggestions or commands to a group that includes the person speaking. Both of them can be used as the equivalent of the English lets in a sentence such as Lets leave. Imperative Mood The most straightforward way is to use the first-person plural imperative mood, which takes the same form as the first-person plural form of the subjunctive mood. In regular -ar verbs, the ending is replaced by -emos, and in -er and -ir verbs, the ending is replaced by -amos: Bailemos un vals. Lets dance a waltz. Compremos una casa en Espaà ±a. Lets buy a house in Spain. Hagamos un trato. Lets make a deal. Tratemos de ser felices. Lets try to be happy. If youre using the imperative form of a reflexive verb, the -emos ending becomes -à ©monos, and the -amos ending becomes -monos. In other words, the -nos ending is added to the verb, but the -s is dropped before the pronoun: Levantà ©monos a las seis de la maà ±ana. Lets get up at 6 a.m. Lavà ©monos las manos. Lets wash our hands. Rimonos un ratito. Lets laugh a little bit. (Rà ©irse is an irregular verb.) In the negative form, however, the pronoun comes before the verb: No nos mejoremos. Lets not improve ourselves. Using Vamos A Probably more common than the imperative mood, and even easier to learn, is to use the first-person plural form of ir followed by a, i.e., vamos a, followed by the infinitive: Vamos a nadar. Lets go swimming. Vamos a casarnos. Lets get married. Vamos a estudiar. Lets study. Vamos a viajar a Italia. Lets go to Italy. You may note that vamos a infinitive can also mean we are going to infinitive, so the first sample sentence above could also mean We are going to swim. Indeed, ir a infinitive is a very common substitute for the future tense in Spanish. In the first-person plural, then, context will determine what is meant. It is not uncommon when meaning lets to replace vamos a with simply a. For example, a ver is a very common way of saying lets see. Another Meaning for Let Us When translating from English, do not confuse lets as a suggestion to the group with let us as a way of asking for permission. For example, one way you might say let us help you would be Permà tenos ayudarte, where the verb permitir is used in the third person (the person being addressed) rather than the first person (the people who want to help).
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