Más te vale agacharte

Question

Better get down.

I don' understand this construction as I see "Más vale que" as a construction that means "better".......

Like, Más vale que te agaches.

But I guess Más te vale agachar works, without que and unconjugated? So does any Más vale que expression work with the que dropped and the pronoun before vale and unconjugated?

Más vale aprender mi nombre. (no te needed since it's not pronomial or reflexive)

Does this work too?

Gracias.

Más vale aprender mi nombre is OK, but it's indicative the other is in subjunctive... - chileno, Aug 10, 2011

Answer 1

Más vale esto que eso. ? comparation

Más te vale esto que eso. ? comparation concerning you

Más te vale esto. ? second term of the comparison implicit

Más te vale comer. ? an infinitive used as a noun

Más te vale agacharte. ? a pronominal infinitive used as a noun

I don't see the problem with that construction, even though it is colloquial. The first "te" is an indirect object, while the second one is part of the pronominal verb. If the first "te" is omitted, the sentence sounds incomplete and it is slightly confusing; if the second one is omitted, it is grammatically wrong. If you referred to someone else, then you would be forced to use que + subjunctive instead of an infinitive:

Más le vale que te agaches.

Now "le" and "te" are different, even though the main idea of the construction remains the same. There is nothing redundant in that construction.

If you want to remove the first "le", though, the infinitive becomes confusing because then we have no clear reference to interpret its subject. In this case, the only alternative is to use que + subjunctive so that the conjugated verb in subjunctive provides the information that "le" used to provide:

Más vale que te agaches.

Answer 2

Something curious.

In my country the bad use of "le", "te", "lo" or "me" is a sign of vulgarity and low educated people.

Some examples of bad use of this.

• Te voy a golpearte.
• Me voy a ducharme
• Lo quiero matarlo
• Le tengo que pegarle

I'm not sure what you mean by bad use. To me, te voy a golpear and voy a golpearte are the same thing, are you saying one of these is bad? - jeezzle, Aug 11, 2011

Oh I see, because I put "Mas te vale agacharte" my bad the last te was a typo, mas te vale agachar. ;) - jeezzle, Aug 11, 2011

But that's because both pronouns are syntactically identical, and therefore they are redundant. In the sentence of this thread they have different syntactic functions. - lazarus1907, Aug 11, 2011

Answer 3

Yes, too many "te's"

Más vale que te agaches.

Mejor que te agaches

Los indios nos están mirando!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

¿Vienen en son de guerra?

No lo creo, parecen que vienen en son de fiesta, porque están todo pintados...

But the "te" can go before the "vale" too right? Gracias. - jeezzle, Aug 11, 2011

Mas te vale que te agaches.... Yes, it is right, too. ;) - chileno, Aug 11, 2011

Answer 4

I just checked with a native speaker friend:

"Me vale aprender mi nombre" = "I have no interest in learning my name"

"Más me vale aprender mi nombre" = "I'd better learn my name"

In addition, if used as a question "¿Me vale?" it means something like "it'll benefit me?"

Just the addition of "más" completely changes the meaning. Fascinating to say the least. Keep up the questions, I learn a ton from them!

Yeah the me was a typo, I meant Más there. I know "Más vale que" is similar to "Mejor" like "Mejor aprender su nombre" - Mas vale que te aprendas su nombre (subjunctive there) but I now wonder about just "Mas vale aprender su nombre" without que. ;) - jeezzle, Aug 11, 2011

Right. "Mas vale aprender su nombre" would work just fine I think; "you'd better learn his name". - NickDan, Aug 11, 2011