"soler" here, which means "to be used to".

Question

Hola todos, I've been self-studying Spanish for some time, and now I am working through the BBC language series, Sueños. I am currently working in the section "Daily Routines" in which a guy is talking about his job as a taxi driver. So, he says, "Suelo trabajar", which, at the BBC website, is tranlsated as "I usually work". Took me awhile to figure it out, but I found the verb "soler" here, which means "to be used to". Does anyone know if this is a common expression? I would have thought of using "Normalmente trabajo", but not "soler". Thanks!

Hi jenny, a meaningful title is useful for further searches. - 00494d19, ENE 24, 2010

I will try to keep that in mind now, makes sense! - Jennivee, ENE 26, 2010

Answer 1

Many of the answers here have been partly right. "Soler" sometimes translates to "used to", but only if it's in the past tense. A more exact translation is "tend to". For example:

Suelo ir al banco ántes de salir con amigos. Translates to: I tend to go to the bank before I go out with friends.

De pequeño, solía comer paella con mis abuelos todos los domingos. Translates to: When I was young, I tended to eat "paella" with my grandparents every Sunday.

Así es. Que bueno que has comentado correctamente acerca de los tiempos de uso. - 005faa61, ENE 24, 2010

Ok this makes sense because I feel there would confusion with the first person present and the word for ground, both are "suelo". Any comments on that? Thanks - CiscoSomar, ABR 4, 2010

Answer 2

I've heard "suelo" often and have always, always misunderstood it to mean "turns out to" which would actually be from the verb "salir". I would have said that "suele trabajar" means that "it turns out that he works" and been completely wrong. Thanks a million for this post. It was very helpful to me. Did you look up "soler" in the site's dictionary? It's got a lot of examples. It's a common thing to say. I just had to go correct mis-translations that I made of the word on two posts today.

Hi alba, I'm glad the question helped you! I figured "suelo" must be a verb (looked it up as a noun first) so I thought it was "solar", then I figured it must be an ir or er stem changer and used the dictionary on this website. :-) - Jennivee, ENE 26, 2010

Answer 3

"used to", "usually", "as is/was my custom", "habitually", "as is/was my wont" (that one's rather old fashioned but I like it).

Answer 4

Yes, but I used to is just for the past... Solía visitar a mis abuelos todos los fines de semana (I used to visit my grandparents every weekend)

Suelo in the present is just like "I usually go to Church every Sunday"

Answer 5

Jenny, very common, I have been trying to tell everybody that this is the word, we actually use to translate the English "used to" correctly

I used to wear my hair longer.

Solía llever el pelo más largo.

But what about using the imprefect of a verb ? - BellaMargarita, ENE 24, 2010

Answer 6

Yes it is.