"If I won the lottery...."

Question

Hola Amigos, I recently had an intercamibo with my Spanish friend and conversation partner. I was practicing the imperfecto de subjuntivo by saying, "If I won the lottery, I would....(buy a house, travel the world, quit my job, etc.)." I formed the sentence this way:

Si ganara la lotería, compraría una casa....

My friend told me that this was fine, but that is was more common in Spain to use the verb "tocar" in the reflexive form to indicate "winning" the lottery. He constructed the sentence this way:

Si me tocase [sic] la lotería, compraría....

I am having a bit of trouble understanding how the sentence is grammatically correct. "Toca" looks to me either like the imperative form or the third-person, singular (present) form, and I have never seen a reflexive pronoun or an objective pronoun appended to the verb in this way. My friend is terrific with Spanish grammar. Is his sentence correct?

Thanks for any help!
Chris

Answer 1

Hi chris, Si me tocara.... and Si me tocase.... are the same. They're called imperfect subjunctive.

If clause: if I did... , I would

You can use both:

Si me tocase la lotería, compraría...

and

Si me tocara la lotería, compraría...

Of course this is an assumption. If you want to say:

If I win the lottery this time, I'll buy...

Then it is:

Si me toca la lotería esta vez, voy a comprar....

--

By the way you could also hear: el Gordo

"¿Si te toca el Gordo?" : What if you win the big prize?

tocar

1. intr. Dicho de una cosa: Caer en suerte.

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Yes, of course! I frequently forget that the imperfect subjunctive has the two different forms. Thanks! - chris126, Feb 1, 2011

Answer 2

I have been looking through my Spanish Dictionary and yes it does give tocarse as the verb conjugated in this example :

tocar vi (sentido 3) 2 (en suerte) (+me/te/le etc...) le ha tocado la lotería/el primer premio/un millón

=She has won the lottery/first prize/a million

So yes, his sentence is correct and both tocara and tocasa are correct forms of the imperfect subjunctive (mood) but the first form tocara and related conjugations are more common than tocase these days . This is what I have been told by one of my previous Spanish teachers which I am sure was confirmed by our online teacher here: Paralee Whitmire .The second form is mostly used in Spanish text (literature) but not common in speech.

I have to say that I was surprised to discover this fact since I never realised that this verb would have been used in this kind of context so thank You I have learnt something new!

I hope this helps

Yes, very helpful. Like you, I did not know this. I wasn't sure how touching myself would help me win the lottery. Jejejejeje. - chris126, Feb 1, 2011

You could look at it as it's "my turn"....te toca a ti (It's your turn...from Paralee's lessons) - 0074b507, Feb 6, 2011

Answer 3

A clarification: tocar in this example is not used reflexively. The phrase is tocarle la loteria (a alguien). In "me toca la loteria," a mí is the indirect object of the verb.

Answer 4

Just marking this page.