Encantada de Conocerte

Question

I use Rosetta Stone, and several times, I have run across the phrase "Encantada de Conecerte", or Encantado de conocerte", or "Encantado de Conocerlo." I understand these mean something to the English equivalant of "I'm glad to meet you", or "Nice to meet you." What I can't figure out is why these words are always changing! Sometimes it's "Encantado de conocerte", and sometimes it's "Encantada de Conecerte, and sometimes there's two or three more I run across! I'm guessing this has something to do with the gender, but I'm not sure what. Can anyone help me to understand why these are always changing?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Encantado is serving as an adjective here. It is a shortening of Estoy encontad@ de conocerte.

If you are male (the speaker; not whom is being spoken to)=encontado

if you're female=encontada (you are describing yourself, not the other person).

As Gekkosan points out the te, le, lo, la, las, les, los, os pronouns on the end of conocer are just different ways of saying "you" depending on gender, number, tone and region.

thanks! - melton1995, Dec 10, 2010

Great Explanation :) - FELIZ77, Dec 10, 2010

If you persist in using forms/constructions/neologisms like "encontad@", Heidita will never let you out of the corner. - samdie, Dec 10, 2010

Answer 2

But isn't it just the same in English? Polite greetings are just for courtesy, and can take several different forms:

Pleased to meet you

My Pleasure

Pleased to make you acquaintance

Nice to meet you

Delighted! (to meet you / to make your acquaintance)

Charmed (to meeto you)

Encantado/a literally means charmed, so it translates directly as "Charmed to meet you"

If you have been studying for a while you already know the difference between the formal and the informal forms in Spanish (Usted vs. tú), therefore the difference between "conocerte" and "conocerle" should not represent a big mystery.

ahhh....thanks :) - melton1995, Dec 10, 2010