Personal Pronouns in Spanish Translation III

We will conclude the discussion on personal pronouns with an examination of reflexive pronouns and pronouns that are objects of prepositions in Spanish translation. When the action that is being carried out by the subject of the verb is directed back upon itself we have an example of a reflexive object. English sentences make sparse use of reflexive objects.

On the contrary, Spanish verbs are usually accompanied by reflexive objects, and translators must be capable of correctly introducing them during Spanish translation. The English sentence ‘George took off his shirt and washed his hands´ is conspicuously free of the reflexive object ‘himself´, but its Spanish translation, ‘Jorge se quitó la camisa y se lavó las manos´ has used it (in the form of ‘se´) twice.

The English ‘each other´ can be variously translated into Spanish as ‘se´, ‘nos´ or ‘os´. The pronouns that are the objects of prepositions are also known as disjunctive pronouns. Most objects of prepositions are the same as subject pronouns. The only exceptions are ‘mí´ (me) and ‘ti´ (you). When ‘mí´ (me) and ‘ti´ (you) are used as objects of the preposition ‘con´, they appear in conjunction with ‘conmigo´ and ‘contigo´.

It is also customary to use the disjunctive pronoun with the preposition ‘a´ for the sake of drawing attention to an indirect object pronoun. For example, the correct Spanish translation of ‘She likes to swim´ will read as ‘A ella le gusta nadar´.