"Nosotros nos estamos ... " why do you have to use "nos"

Question

I hope someone can explain this. I wrote the following sentence:

¡Nosotros estamos moviendo a Australia para que podamos tener una nueva vida!

However it has been corrected by one of my latin american friend's, but he could not explain why he corrected it by adding the pronoun "nos"

¡Nosotros NOS estamos moviendo a Australia para que podamos tener una nueva vida!

I cannot understand why you have both nosotros and nos in the same sentence and next to each other. Aren't you doubling up on the "we" by using two pronouns?

I don't believe it is a reflexive, indirect or a direct object pronoun and at this stage of my learning, I am not aware of any other pronouns.

If someone could point me in the right direction, so I can research further on this type of pronoun, it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Thanking you in advance.

Kindest regards Christine

you get my vote on this and welcome to the forum:) - 00494d19, Oct 10, 2009

Answer 1

Yes, it is reflexive. Mudarse should be the verb. Mover is for moving objects around. The nosotros is a subject pronoun and completely unnecessary.

We are moving [ourselves] to Australia rather than we are moving our house or car or some other object to Australia. The nos only serves to tell what is being moved from location to location. It is reflexive since the agent and receiver of the verbs action refers to the same people. If you were moving your neighbor or car to Australia it would be non-reflexive.

this man is too fast for me!! - 00494d19, Oct 10, 2009

omg...and you said exactly the same thing...I am leaving my post anyway, jejej, - 00494d19, Oct 10, 2009

Yes, but I'll be correctling it long after you could have replied. - 0074b507, Oct 10, 2009

Answer 2

Thank you so much for the informative answers. It now brings up another question though. The reflexive verb in the present progressive has confused me.

I now want to use the reflexive verb mudarse and the present progressive (estar + gerund).

So back to my sentence:

"Nos estamos moviendo a Australia para que podamos tener una nueva vida".

If I were to now use the reflexive verb mudarse instead of mover could you say:

Nos estamos mudándo a Australia ..." OR does this mean the same thing:

Estamos mudándonos a Australia.." (hooking the pronoun on at the end) OR do you have to say

Nos estamos mudándose a Australia..

Answer 3

If I were to now use the reflexive verb mudarse instead of mover could you say:

Nos estamos mudándo a Australia ..." OR does this mean the same thing:

Estamos mudándonos a Australia.." (hooking the pronoun on at the end) OR do you have to say

Nos estamos mudándose a Australia..

For reflexive verbs, the pronoun usually comes before the conjugated verb.

Here is a link to a previous thread that goes into more detail about the use of pronomial verbs/reflexive pronouns

Answer 4

HI Christine, I am going to propose your thread as the well posted thread of the day! It has a clear question, context (!!) , correct spelling...I mean, it could not be better

Well, to come to your question:

You have to use nos, as this is a reflexive verb, actually, you should have used "mudarse" instead of mover...mover is just move as in movement, not in changing home.

The verb is mudarse, so it is :

Me mudo, te mudas....nos mudamos

What you should not have used is the subject pronoun nosotros, you can simply forget about subject pronouns in Spanish, have a look at this thread if you are interested

Answer 5

Nosotros and Nos are different.

Nosotros = We

Nos = Us (reflexive)

You could drop the "nosotros" here because "estamos" already implies the "we conjugation".

Nos estamos moviendo a Australia para que podamos tener una nueva vida!

^ that sounds better than "nosotros nos" to my ears.