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While reading some materials, I found words like these: "conocerte" (= te conozco), "mirarte" (= te miro).

I can't effectively find anything useful (in English) about this.

What's the exact name of this conjugation and is there corresponding rules for conjugations about "me/te/lo/la/nos/los/las conozco"?


Excuse me for being new to Spanish. Please don't write the whole answer in Spanish or I'll have trouble understanding it

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  • 1
    while someone has time for a full answer let me say that "mírate" is not "te miro (I'm looking at you) " but it means "look at yourself". Also check if you are asking about "conoceRte" or "conócete" since the first one is "I know you" while the second is "know yourself" (similar to mírate). Or perhaps you are asking about "miraRte" which indeed is used when "I'm looking at you"
    – DGaleano
    Aug 23, 2017 at 14:22
  • @DGaleano Corrected my question. I mean "I know / am looking at you", not "know / look at yourself".
    – iBug
    Aug 23, 2017 at 14:45
  • Here's the super simple version: "Yo quiero conocerte" = "Yo te quiero conocer." It's just a fun way of moving the pronoun over and sticking it onto the end of the infinitive. Try reading them out loud and you'll see that the "conocerte" version is a fun variant. Aug 24, 2017 at 0:18

1 Answer 1

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A full answer would require the equivalent of a few Spanish course classes, so I'll just clear the basics up.

What you found are combinations between verbs and pronouns. These are not different conjugations. The pronouns are the shorter, unstressed, non-empathic forms that are technically known as clitic. A pronoun is enclitic if it's attached to the end of the verb, and proclitic if it's attached before the verb. (Proclitic pronouns in Spanish are not written together with the verb, but they're attached to it nevertheless: they behave as if they were part of the same word.)

There are a number of rules dictating when a clitic pronoun can and cannot precede or follow a verb. These can get fairly complicated but here are some:

  • Clitics never precede infinitives: it's conocerte, never *te conocer.
  • Clitics may precede or follow conjugated verbs (except in the imperative), but in modern Spanish they usually come before: la miro is OK and mírola is OK too, but nobody says mírola nowadays.
  • Clitics always follow verbs in the imperative: it's mírame and vete, never *me mira, *te ve (note: these sound exactly the same as other forms of the verb which are not imperatives).
  • Clitics also follow the gerund forms: mirándolos, yéndome, conociéndonos.
  • If there are two clitics (because the verb takes two objects), the first is always the indirect object: it's te lo diré or decírtelo, never *lo te diré or *decírlote.

As I said, these are not different forms of the verb (conjugations), in the same way as him in I see him is not part of the verb: you just need to learn the verbs by themselves and then learn how to properly place the pronouns.

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  • Sobre el punto Clitics always follow verbs in the imperative, recuerdo haber oído en Colombia expresiones del tipo se mire el codo, que le está sangrando. Es decir, que sí usarían el clítico antes del imperativo. No sé si se considerará incorrecto.
    – fedorqui
    Aug 24, 2017 at 6:39
  • @fedorqui ¿Hablarías inglés, por favor? No puedo entenderte mucho.
    – iBug
    Nov 20, 2017 at 3:51
  • @iBug dije: about Clitics always follow verbs in the imperative, I remember hearing expressions like se mire el codo, que le está sangrando in Colombia. That is, they using the clitic before an imperative. I do not know if that is incorrect.
    – fedorqui
    Nov 20, 2017 at 12:51

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