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How to say “myself”, “yourself”, “himself” in Spanish Posted by on Dec 3, 2012 in Spanish Grammar

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.]
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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About the Author: Adir

English / Spanish teacher and translator for over 20 years. I have been blogging since 2007 and I am also a professional singer in my spare time.


Comments:

  1. Charlotte Quevedo:

    I have a question. I have conversed with natives on and off for years and am now trying to perfect my Spanish since I am teaching my children who are half Mexican. I have heard the reflexive pronoun used in places where it might translate as myself where you say that “mismo” or “misma” fits better. For example, one day I was mentioning to my husband’s cousin that I was amazed how she was able to figure out how to put on this baby carrier without any instructions. She told me verbatim “yo me inventé.”

    I don’t know what the most precise English translation is but what I am trying to figure out is this…it seems like reflexive pronouns are addes into certain sentences where they seem illogical to the English speaker, but they add certain emphasis in the “myself” arena. If there is a logic behind this please share so that I can figure out how to incorporate this into my speech.

    Thank you