Conjugate the reflexive pronoun or not?

Question

Here's something I can never remember correctly: when using reflexive verbs as nouns, do you conjugate the reflexive pronoun or not? Here's an example:

I'm in the habit of going to bed early.

Tengo por costumbre acostarme temprano. or

Tengo por costumbre acostarse temprano.

I believe the first one is correct, but I'm not sure. Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks, Mitchell

Answer 1

For the sake of this example, let's translate "acostarse" as "to lay oneself down".

But when you conjugate it in English, you would say:

I'm in the habit of laying myself down early.

The same concept in Spanish. Your first sentence is correct. Your second sentence would sound like this to a Spanish speaker:

I'm in the habit of laying oneself down early.

Thanks. That's the suspicion I had while writing out the sentence, that it just sounded wrong, but I thought I'd ask anyway because I wasn't 100% sure. - MitchellSalad, Aug 20, 2011