"de ser" or "ser"

Question

So, the following two sentences I believe are grammatically correct:

1. Eres afortunado de ser mexicano.

2. No es fácil ser mexicano.

Why does sentence 1 require "de ser" but not in sentence 2? Gracias.

Answer 1

1. Eres afortunado de ser mexicano.

2. No es fácil ser mexicano.

When the part with the infinitive is functioning as the subject of the sentence, there is no need for "de" before the infinitive. When it is not, it needs to be connected with "de".

No es fácil ser mexicano= Ser mexicano no es fácil.

It is not easy to be Mexican= To be Mexican is not easy. It= to be Mexican, the subject of the sentence.

Eres afortunado de ser mexicano - you cannot say "ser mexicano eres afortunado" it makes no sense because the verb is conjugated to tú. You are fortunate to be Mexican.

Look here:

Él es difícil de entender. He is difficult to understand. He is the subject, so to understand must be connected with de.

Es difícil entenderlo. It is difficult to understand him. Understanding him is the subject, he is the direct object of the infinitive.

If our placeholder "it" is the subject matching the infinitive, no "de", if anything else is the subject, you need to connect it with "de".

That is great. I do this without even thinking about it. I can now use your reasoning for the benefit of my students. Gracias. ♥ - Daniela2041, Jun 26, 2016

It is almost without thinking about it for me now, but that was developed by applying this until it became so. :) - bosquederoble, Jun 26, 2016

Thank you to both of you. :) - sunflowerhk, Jun 27, 2016

Answer 2

It's just that "afortunado" used in this type of construction needs the preposition "de" It really doesn't mean any thing. It just has to be there.

You'll see this a lot of times with the verb ser +adjective+ de+infinitive.This may even be a rule. In the college textbooks, these expressions are taken up one at a time and are learned as vocabulary items. That's the way native speakers also learn them. I know I did.