Conjugating quebrar confusion and an unknown word it is used with

Question

I am translating a Spanish book. It was written in both English and Spanish, so I have a basic idea of what I'm reading.

In the story, the sentence I'm having trouble with is this one, "Cuando se quebran estos tesoritos, revelan memorias de una tradición familiar y llena de alegría que aprendió de abuelita Socorro."

My first confusion is with the conjugation of se quebran. When I look at the conjugated forms of both quebrar and quebrarse, I don't see "se quebran." The closest I see is se quiebran.

From the English translation, I'm assuming that "tesoritos" means "little treasures". However, this word is not found in your dictionary.

I know that Mexican Spanish sometimes uses different words. Do they also conjugate differently?

Hello, welcome to the forum! - rac1, Nov 25, 2012

Thank you! Gracias! - jlgluvslara, Nov 25, 2012

Answer 1

Quiebran is the correct conjugation. It's not unusual for native speakers to leave off the "i" when conjugating quebrar, fregar, etc.

Tesoritos is the diminutive of tesoros. So, you are correct. It means little treasures.

Oh, thank you! It was nice being voted on, but I was worried nobody was going to know the answer. - jlgluvslara, Nov 25, 2012