'cinendose las chales sobre los hombros"

Question

This is from a book I am reading, a novel in pure spanish. I have two questions. 1. What does adding dose do to the regualr verb cenir and 2. Would "los" be translated as thier and if so why did they use los and not "sus"

Thanks!

please fill out your profile so that we may better help you . Bienvenido al fora , buena suerte amiga. - ray76, Jan 7, 2015

"their" - ray76, Jan 7, 2015

Answer 1

He/she is wrapping the shawls over his/her shoulders.

ceñir = to wrap. Ciñendose is the pronominal form of the verb conjugated in the present progressive. The 'se' here put the action back to the subject.

'los' here relates to the person's shoulders. When we talk about body parts in this way we use lo/la/los/las and the pronominal pronoun (in this instance se) indicates who's shoulders they are.

Las chales should be los chales. El chal is a masculine noun.

Actually I would expect to see the word 'estar (conjugated of course)' before ciñendose here too. Otherwise we are just saying........'wrapping the shawls over his/her shoulders'

:) - Joydeep_Singh, Jan 7, 2015

Well done - 005faa61, Jan 7, 2015

thanks guys - billygoat, Jan 7, 2015