Yo me voy/Ya me voy

Question

I've been listening to the Spanish audio series by Pimsleur and I'm still having a little trouble with something.

The lessons say that "I am leaving" is "Yo me voy." My girlfriend, (a native Spanish speaker) says it's "Ya me voy." Although I will tend to take her word for it, I'm still a little puzzled.

If it's "Yo" then to me the sentence looks like, "Me, I, I will go." So where is the context for "leave" rather than "go"?

If it's "Ya" I"m puzzled for a different reason. I don't quite get the usage of "Ya." I've looked at the dictionary here on line and my hard copy and I still can't grasp the context in this case.

All help is appreciated. I'm still very much a beginner, but I'll get there!

Answer 1

Ya is different form yo, Difster.

Yo me voy: I will leave/I am leaving

(Yo) Ya me voy: I will leave now/I am leaving now

Remember that the subject is often elliptical in Spanish, actually most of the time.

Ya is normally translated as "already" but in the context, I would use now.

Welcome to the forum, difster!!

Don't hesitate to ask if something is still unclear.

Answer 2

Heidita,

Thanks for the reply. I already understood that Ya and Yo were different, I was just getting conflicting information on which usage was correct for that phrase. The lessons told me one thing, my girlfriend told me another.

I also realize that language is not always either precise nor consistent so I guess both could be correct depending on where it's used.

Answer 3

Warning: Your girlfriend may not know Spanish grammar as well as you think. Most native speakers learn their language only by absorption, and often don't think about, or are unaware of, the grammatical aspects that you may ask them about. This applies to native speakers of any language.

What your girlfriend may have been trying to express is that "Yo me voy" isn't natural Spanish in most contexts, since the yo is unnecessary. If the situation were, say, where one person says "I don't think anyone should leave," and another person wants to say, "As for me, I'm leaving," then you would include the yo, but not in most situations.

As Heidita says, ya in this context is best translated as "now." Another common phrase is "ya voy," which is the reply to someone calling you to come to them.

Mom: Lalo, a comer. (Eddy, it's time to eat.)
Lalo: Ya voy. (I'm coming.)

Answer 4

It's all smoke and mirrors.

But thanks all the same!

Answer 5

As James said: "Yo" is unnecessary because it's implicit in te word "Me" ( which is a personal prnoun in 1st. person/ who speaks).

Answer 6

David, You are right, but the indicative present has it's irregularities, were consonants ( Z and G ) are added before the ends cer, cir, nir, ner:
Agradecer= Agradezco.
Conocer= Conozco.
Producir= produzco.
Merecer= merezco.
permanecer: permanezco.
Entonces: Envejecer= envejezco.
Venir= vengo.
Poner= pongo.
Tener= tengo.

Answer 7

now we have voy as coming.

Ir and venir do not map perfectly to go and come. In Spanish, ir is always used to refer to moving away from the subject's current location, and venir to refer to moving toward the subject's current location. So when Lalo says "I'm coming" (Ya voy) in my example, he uses ir because he is moving away from his current location toward his mother. This actually makes perfect sense when you think about it, and English is the illogical one in this case.

Answer 8

I don't know if I am coming or going, which is true but how would you say it'

Ya no sé si voy o vengo.

Answer 9

This is on wordreference

'irse verbo reflexivo
1 (marcharse) to go away, leave: me voy, I'm off
¡vámonos!, let's go!
¡vete!, go away!
vete a casa, go home ? Ver nota en leave
2 (líquido, gas) (escaparse) to leak
3 (direcciones) ¿por dónde se va a...', which is the way to...?
4 (gastar) to go, be spent: no sé en qué se me fue el dinero, I don't know where the money went
Ten cuidado con este verbo. La traducción más común es to go, pero sólo cuando expresa la idea de alejarse de quien habla o del oyente. Si, por el contrario, implica un acercamiento al hablante o al oyente, entonces es mejor usar el verbo to come: ¡Voy! Coming! Esta regla también se aplica a los verbos compuestos como go o come out (salir), go o come in (entrar), go o come up (subir), go o come down (bajar), etc.

Now we have voy as coming, Dios mios

I don't know if I'm coming or going, which is true but how would you say it.

No sé si vengo o si me voy
'''''

Answer 10

I'm also messing up my post.

Answer 11

I want to reply to SLP2008's post, but for some reason there is no "Reply to this" link after her post.

Anyway, "No sé si estoy yendo o viniendo" gets only one lonesome googit, and while I'm not positive, I believe the best way to express this in Spanish is "No sé si voy o vengo" (over 1100 googits). Note that the order is reversed between English and Spanish.

Answer 12

googit = Google hit

Counting googits for various words or phrases is a good way to judge their frequency of usage. For example, gooling wierd gets 15 million hits (showing that lots of English speakers have spelling difficulties), but googling the correct spelling gets 145 million.

Answer 13

James is quite right:

No sé si voy o vengo.

Yes, motley, very confusing.

Voy!!! (I'm) coming!!

Answer 14

The problem is, we learned
" i before e except after c"

Answer 15

¡¡¡me voy!!!

¡¡¡Me largo!!!!
jejejeje