#reflexive verbs

Hello,

Même means:

Same when it's an adjective (J'ai le même pull),

Even though if placed in front of If (Je l'aime même s'il est toujours en retard)

Itself (or a sibling) when placed after a tonic pronoun (Moi-même)

Very when placed after a noun (Le soir même - That very evening)

Incarnated when placed after a virtue/vice (Elle est la bonté même)

When it comes to possessive determiners, you want to look at gender and number (Tes chiens, Mon chat) but here are two things to keep in mind:

When using a third person singular, the determiner doesn't refer to the gender of the person who owns but the gender of the thing or being that is owned (His cat: The cat whose gender is unknown of the boy VS Son chat: The male cat of the person of unknown gender)

When talking about a body part, there is no need to use a possessive determiner a the sentence will already contain a noun or a personal pronoun referring to the person who own that body part as it would make it redundant. My leg hurts: J'ai mal à la jambe, not J'ai mal à ma jambe. I cut my finger: Je me suis coupé le doigt (reflexive verb), not J'ai coupé mon doigt.

Just sharing with you a free lesson about French reflexive verbs that I made last week.

This is a detailed lessons giving you the basics and more knowledge to understand French reflexive verbs. Hope it helps!

👇If you want to know more about it, Click below!

https://www.learnfrenchwithchanty.com/french-reflexive-verbs

¡Hola y bienvenid@!

So what you are referring to is a reflexive verb. Don't focus on the english translation because that isn't always going to help you. One language does not equal another. Reflexive verbs simply mean that the doer of an action is doing it/applying to themselves.

Like you said in the question, the English equivalent doesn't make sense on Spanish.

In your example it is not so clear as to why it is reflexive in Spanish but it just is. Quedar by itself means to remain so if it helps think of quedarse as "to remain oneself", even though we wouldn't say it like that.

I've included some other links about the reflexive and other uses of se.

Reflexive verbs: we use these verbs when the subject is doing the action to itself.

se réveiller   [to wake yourself up]

se laver        [to get yourself up]

se doucher   [to take yourself a shower]

se raser        [to shave yourself]

s’habiller       [to dress yourself]

se maquiller  [to put makeup on yourself]

Reflexive verbs are verbs that you do to your self. Here is a list of reflexive verbs for this lesson.

se lever- to wake (one’s self) up

s’habiller- to dress (one’s self)

se laver- to wash (one’s self)

se brosser- to brush (one’s teeth)

se raser - to shave (one’s self)

se coiffer- to do (one’s hair)

And here is a list of the reflexive pronouns in French

me- myself

te- yourself

nous- ourself

vous- yourselves

se- themself/themselves

So how do we use reflexive verbs?

In English we only us the reflexive pronoun for emphasis. If I say ‘I got dressed’ I do not normally need to add ‘myself’.

In french you must always say ‘I got myself dressed’

Here is the construction [noun] + [reflexive pronoun that agrees with noun] + [verb conjugated].

Example:

Je me lève / I get (myself) up

Ils s’habillent / they get (themselves) dressed

If the verb describes doing something to a part of your body:

Tu te brosses les dents / you brush your teeth or literally ‘you yourself brush the teeth’

How would you say ‘I wash my hands?’ what about ‘He shaves his face’?

Lastly, reflexive verbs always take être in passé composé.

construction: [noun] + [reflexive pronoun] + [être conjugated] + [reflexive verb]

Elle s’est coiffer / she did her hair (herself)

Hi! Reciprocal verbs are part of the reflexives family, so it’s perfectly fine that you have a tough time in recognizing them.The difference is really subtle:Reflexive verbs are the verbs in which both the subject and the object are the same person/thing/whatever or part of the same person/thing/whatever:Mi lavo (= io lavo me stesso) - I wash myself.Mi lavo le mani ( = io lavo le mie mani)- I wash my handsThese are called riflessivi propri, in fact.In the reciprocal verbs instead, the action is exhanged among two or more different subjects/objects (the subject and the object of the action in the same sentence are different,if you separate the sentence in as many parts as the number of subjects you have - well, let’s see the example):Giulio e Maria si sono sposati. (= Giulio ha sposato Maria e Maria ha sposato Giulio)- Giulio and Maria married each other (Giulio married Maria and Maria married Giulio)The reciprocal verbs are part of the so called “riflessivi impropri” together with two other categories of reflexive verbs.

I suggest you to read this old post we made for a better explanation btw.