Como usar "¿se te dan bien?"

Question

Por favor cualquier persona, ¿Puede explicar me como usar el grammatico "¿se te dan bien?" If we translate it literally, what i get is "are they given you well?" I'm trying to understand it and put it in to use, since I just learned this Spanish grammar in my last Spanish class. Please help!

Answer 1

If you're familiar with the intransitive construction with verbs like gustar you will see the similarities.

The subject follows the verb.

Me gustan las manzanas.

The sentence translates as if it is transitive (I like apples), but is constructed as an intransitive sentence. (Apples are pleasing to me.).

Se me dan bien las matemáticas - I am good at math.

In the Spanish sentence mathematics is the subject of the sentence. The se would be reflexive. If you look up darse it translates as "to yield onself" or "to give in". So similar to apples are pleasing to me we are now saying mathematics yields itself well to me.

Se te dan bien.

[They] yield [themselves] well to you. or You are good at them.

I don't know if this will help you or confuse you, depending on how well you understand verbs like gustar, encantar, etc.

me doy bien mentir a las chicas?

The subject of the sentence is lying to girls., therefore, doy is incorrect.

se me da bien mentir a las chicas? (or is it me dan bien here?)

Do you understand why it is da and not dan? The subject (lying) is singular.

perfect - 00494d19, NOV 19, 2009

I get everything but the se at the beginning. I guess gustar is not reflexive or else we would say se me gusta instead of me gusta. I guess the se is just from darse. Still seems weird. - jeezzle, NOV 19, 2009

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for:

darse bien - to be good at sth

Se me dan bien las matemáticas - I am good at maths.

Se te da bien jugar al fútbol - You are good at playing football.

Answer 3

Me da bien mentir a las chicas.

I don't get why mentir is the subject.

I believe they should be together eg. mentir a las chicas. In which case the subject would be plural. In English i think this is also the case. No ?

Answer 4

Wowww... Thanks for the very specific and informative answer. Now I get it . Thanks for your help "gfreed", "issa" and "heidita", really appreciate it.

Answer 5

Weird, so it's darse and then it also has the extra SE at the beginning because dar reflects the following noun?

So never me doy bien mentir a las chicas? Always se me da bien mentir a las chicas? (or is it me dan bien here?)

Answer 6

Hi gilda, welcome to the forum

As you can see by Issa's answer, the structure is completely different so you cannot translate this directly.