Me alegro de verte VS Me alegra de verte

Question

I am told these are pretty much the same thing, the reason I am asking is because of another recent thread where someone said "Me complace verte de nuevo - or something like that, and not me complazco verte de nuevo (or something similar and why 1st person doesn't work when reflecting on yourself etc....). This seems to be a case where they DO both work 1st and 3rd person am I right?

Answer 1

The first one is correct, but the second one would be:

Me alegra verte

Do you know the reason that DE is not used for the second? Gracias. Te aprecio. - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

Because in the last, verte is not a verb but a noun. - cogumela, Sep 17, 2010

So verte, in the last, is a noun or acting as a noun? I thought DE was always needed when connecting to a noun according to Lazarus. - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

According to Lazarus this? I don`t believe that Lazarus had said that, in this sense at least - cogumela, Sep 17, 2010

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/157199/you-are-lucky-to-be-alive - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

What Lazarus says in the link is that you must join nouns with prepositions. This is not the case: me alegra verte= pronoun+verb+noun - cogumela, Sep 17, 2010

Answer 2

The first phrase has two verbs and two subjects and two predicates, then is a subordinada: I am happy because I see you.

The second is only one sentece. Seeing you makes me happy.

Seeing you, goodness. It's frustrating, I know my level is good, but some of this early stuff still slipped by. I can hold conversations with the guys at work, but it's always the intricate details of why and how that hit me with the dummy brick. - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

Answer 3

Like cogumela said, in the last one verte is used like we use a gerund in English - turning a verb into a noun. It's like me gusta bailar. You don't say me gusta de bailar. Verte is the subject of the sentence.

as a gerund makes sense, Its hard for me to relate gerunds by default to infinitives although I know they are on the same page. ;) - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

I just recently got the connection from one of Lazarus' answers to one of my questions. Spanish doesn't have a gerund. They use the infinitive as the verb-as-noun thingie. Their gerundio just means it ends in -ando or -iendo, and it can't be a noun.. - KevinB, Sep 17, 2010

Answer 4

I agree with everyone here

Even me? ;) - jeezzle, Sep 17, 2010

OK, that deserves a vote. Anyone who agrees with me must be right. - KevinB, Sep 17, 2010