How do I know when to use "yo" and "me" in certain sentences?

Question

Such as this sentence: Me siento muy mal. What if it were reversed: Yo siento muy mal. What is the difference and why is one preferred over the other?

Yo quiero ir al cine. Me quiero ir al cine.

Yo cosi una nueva camiseta hoy. Me cosi una nueva camiseta hoy.

and you so on..

??

Welcome !Great question mate. Please fill in your profile so that we may best help you . - ray76, Nov 16, 2013

Thanks - kuddah, Nov 16, 2013

Answer 1

I'll take the first one.

'Me siento muy mal' is correct. Because you are using the pronominal or some might say reflexive verb sentirse.

You can't say yo siento muy mal because when you describe how you feel you must use the pronominal form of the verb.

Me siento muy mal. How do you feel? Very bad.

Try to remember sentirse with how you feel and sentir with what you feel.

Or when I was learning the difference I made up this little rhyme ... How you feel is reflexive, what is not!

(Yo) siento alegría. What do you feel? Alegría.

Siento mucho dolor en el estómago. What do you feel? A lot of pain.

But even in those last two cases you probably wouldntt use 'yo' because 'siento' can only refer to 'yo' (I feel) so most native speakers omit the 'yo' unless they really want to stress 'I' for some reason.

Kiwi I love your answers they cut through to the nub like a Rat on a Rabbit ,aye. thanks mate I really appreciate all that you do for us here , we are lucky to have you . - ray76, Nov 16, 2013

Aw thanks Ray :) - Kiwi-Girl, Nov 16, 2013

Ah! Okay, I see now, k can pretty much fill in the blanks now, thanks for the great advice. - kuddah, Nov 16, 2013

my pleasure :) - Kiwi-Girl, Nov 16, 2013

hola kiwi....wouldnt alegria be an emotion...which would make your sentence me siento? if you were in the dark you could say siento una vibora!!!!!! - chavofelix, Nov 16, 2013

Hey Chavo yes alegría is an emotion but in that sentence it is what you are feeling, not how. So you say 'siento alegría' but 'me siento alegre'. - Kiwi-Girl, Nov 17, 2013

Answer 2

In fact, an implied 'yo' is there in both constructions, and the 'me' is an extra, additional part to show that the verb is pronominal or reflexive.

So although we say "Me veo", it is actually "(Yo) me veo" (I see myself). You can tell that there is an unused yo in there by the verb ending. Also, 'me' doesn't mean 'I'. It actually means something more like 'myself'.

These pages are useful: reflexive verbs 1 reflexive verbs 2 pronominal verbs

Answer 3

Thanks guys, i see that as long as the subject stays the same then you can conjugate the verb to agree with it, but if it talks about another object (non-personal) it begins with "yo". Wow language learning is complex when ur totally unfamiliar with what is barely used in ur native tongue.

Answer 4

Just to add on a different note. Querer.

Yo quiero ir al cine. I want to go to the movies.

Me quiero ir al cine. I want myself to go to the movies. Or in other words I want to go to the movies by myself.

Okay! Okay! So the last two are correct, but mean something different pronominally speaking. - kuddah, Nov 16, 2013

Yo cosi una nueva camisa: I sewed a new shirt; OR me cosi una nueva camisa: I sewed myself a new shirt. - kuddah, Nov 16, 2013