Hello, there! How was your weekend? I hope it was fun.

Today we have a little grammar post about reflexive pronouns in Spanish. In English we have the reflexive pronouns to say that we perform and receive an action:

I saw myself in the mirror.
Enjoy yourself!
She cut herself with a knife.

In Spanish we use the following reflexive pronouns to express this:

yo – me
tú – te
él, ella, usted – se
nosotros – nos
vosotros – os
ellos, ellas, ustedes – se

Yo me vi en el espejo. [I saw myself in the mirror.]
Tú te has duchado* muy temprano. [You took a shower very early.]
Él se puso* una camiseta muy bonita. [He put on a very beautiful T-shirt.]
Nosotros nos contentamos* con eso. [We are content with that.]
Vosotros os habéis cortado con un cuchillo. [You (plural) have cut yourselves with a knife.]
Ellas se compraron* muchas cosas. [They bought (fem.) themselves a lot of things.]

*Some verbs are used in a reflexive form in Spanish, but not in English. Watch out for those!

When we want to say we do things ourselves, without the help of somebody else, we use the following phrases:

yo mismo – (by) myself
tú mismo – (by) yourself
él mismo – (by) himself
ella misma – (by) herself
usted mismo(a) – (by) yourself [formal]
nosotros(as) mismos(as) – (by) ourselves
vosotros(as) mismos(as) – (by) yourselves [plural]
ellos mismos – (by) themselves [masc.]
ellas mismas – (by) themselves [fem.]
ustedes mismo(as) – (by) yourselves [formal – plural]

Some examples:

La torta la hice yo mismo. [I made the cake myself.]
Me encanta que fuisto tú mismo quien la llamó. [I’m glad you were the one who called her.]
Tiene cuatro años y es una niña muy independiente. Se lava los dientes y se viste ella misma. [She’s four and she’s a very independent girl. She brushes her teeth and gets dressed by herself.]
Nosotros mismos limpiamos la casa. [We clean the house by ourselves.]

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