ella no se ha lavado el pelo

Question

I'm learning about the present perfect. The formation for third person singular is él/ella ha + past participle. For "she hasn't washed her hair" I think the translation should be "ell no ha lavado el pelo" according to the rules. I did not see that 'lavar' is a reflexive verb, so why is the correct answer (in the practice book) "ella no se ha lavado el pelo'?

Welcome to SpanishDict. Please do as Mardle has said. You need to capitalize here. It is one of our rules. Thanks. - rac1, Mar 19, 2017

yup, done. - ee7klt, Mar 20, 2017

Answer 1

The one thing no one has really commented on:

Ella no ha lavado el pelo. She has not washed the hair. What hair?

Ella no ha lavado el pelo de su hija. She has not washed her daughter's hair.

Ella no se ha lavado el pelo. She has not washed her hair. ( she has not washed herself (specifically) the hair).

Switch it to tú, just to make it clearer:

No te has lavado el pelo. You have not washed your hair.

An English speaker might think: No has lavado tu pelo.

Spanish does not work like that, the preference with body parts (and some other situations) is to indicate the ownership with the pronominal pronoun and leave the part with definite article. This is in direct contrast to English, where we prefer to use the possessive adjective with the body part. this must be learned as specific difference between the languages.

Me duele el estómago.

My stomach hurts.

Answer 2

Welcome to the forum. Can you edit your question by capitalising the 'I's [it is so non English speakers see how to write English correctly]

So far as reflexive verbs are concerned, they are used more often in Spanish than English. In English it is often implied. We say ' I got up and showered. ' Unless we say 'My Mum woke me up and showered me', we know we are doing it to ourselves. In Spanish when you have/take a shower, you use ducharse - me ducho and to get up is levantarse.

Sometimes making the verb reflexive changes its meaning. eg acordar to agree acordarse to recall. However there are lots of verbs used in your daily routine, which are reflexive.

If you are washing a thing, it is not reflexive ie washing dishes or a car.

Here is a piece on reflexive verbs

FluentU reflexive verbs

and this site has good explanations plus exercises

studySpanish

Answer 3

I wash my car. Yo lavo mi auto. But I wash meaning I wash myself Yo me lavo. When you mean I wash my hands you could say Yo ME lavo las manos. LAVAR Is not reflexivo when the object is something else than oneself. Yo lavo las manos de Juan. Yo lavo los platos etc