Difference between venir y venirse and volver y volverse

Question

Hola a todos,

I was reading on spanishdict some of the examples given with volver and saw that volver has a pronominal form (volverse), but it seems to be used in the exact same way at times. The example was: se volvió a España. But wouldn't volvió a España work as well? What are the differences in those two statements and change in connotation? Same for venir y venirse.

Thank you very much,

Olympiad42

Answer 1

Volver is an intransitive verb when used as a person returning to a place where he once was, so in this case we use the pronominal form volverse, so your example of "volver a España" isn´t used.

If someone is going in circles we normally say "Dar vueltas" but it can also be said non-pronominally even though in this case it´s still considered a transitive verb.

Also as a transitive verb it can mean "again", ie: In the song "Vuélveme a querer", she is asking him to love her again.

Normally a transitive verb needs to act on something, but volver has many usages that don´t conform such as "Volverse loco" (to become crazy). Even though it´s transitive in this case, it´s always used as pornominal.

The RAE dictionary has other examples of usages of volver that would be helpful as well.

Your title says "venir" and "venirse" - different from the text in your post. This verb is always intransitive and the RAE gives various examples of this verb too.