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How do you say “marry” in Spanish? And why does Spanish have two verbs that mean “to love”? Today we’ll explore the verb Casarse, as well as Amar, and what the difference is between Amar and Querer. We’ll also get lots of spoken practice using both Casarse and Amar in real sentence contexts.
Se aman mucho.
Intro: Join us on a rigorous, step-by-step journey to fluency. I’m Timothy and this is LearnCraft Spanish.
Today we’re going to learn the Spanish verb for “to get married”. But first, let’s revisit how to talk about “loving” in Spanish.
We already know that the verb Querer can mean both “to want” and “to love”. For example:
I love her a lot.
La quiero mucho.
But there’s actually another verb, Amar, that specifically means “to love”. So that same sentence could be:
La amo mucho.
So what’s the difference between la quiero and la amo? Well, when you use Querer to mean “love”, the sense might be a little bit lighter or more casual. Amar is almost always a bit more intense and serious. So Querer basically works in all situations, but Amar works in more specific situations, like between lovers or close family members. For the purposes of today’s quizzing, we’ll only use Amar, not Querer.
Let’s go ahead and get some quizzing practice with a whole bunch of different uses of this verb. It’s conjugated exactly like Hablar, so you should be able to predict the Spanish.
You love her, but she doesn’t love you.
La amas, pero ella no te ama.
They love each other.
Se aman.
You have to love your degree program or you won’t finish it.
Tienes que amar tu carrera o no la terminarás.
We don’t love her because of the accident.
No la amamos por el accidente.
I have loved him for eighty-one weeks.
Lo he amado por ochenta y una semanas.
I didn’t love him, but he loved me.
Yo no lo amaba, pero él me amaba.
You didn’t love just any person.
No amabas a una persona cualquiera.
I love my family, but on the other hand, they are a little crazy.
Amo a mi familia, pero por otro lado, están un poco locos.
Our next verb is Casar, which means something like “to marry”. But you’ll rarely encounter the non-pronominal version of this verb. Instead, you’ll most often encounter Casarse, which means “to get married”. Here’s how it works idiomatically. Let’s say that you want to say:
I’m marrying Santiago this month.
So in English, we can simply use Santiago as a direct object. But in Spanish, you won’t do that. Instead, you’ll use a reflexive pronoun and say me caso, and then you’ll say con, and then the person you’re getting married to. So here’s the Spanish:
Me caso con Santiago este mes.
So to English speakers this sounds it’s literally likesaying “I’m marrying myself with Santiago.” But this is the correct way to say “I’m marrying Santiago”, or “I’m getting married to Santiago”.
Here’s another example:
He got married to her last year.
Se casó con ella el año pasado.
Now, if two people are marrying each other, you don’t need the phrase with con; you’ll instead just use se or nos. Here are two examples:
They got married today.
Se casaron hoy.
We got married in that country.
Nos casamos en ese país.
Let’s go ahead and practice this. Casar is conjugated exactly like Hablar, so you should be able to predict the Spanish. Just remember to use reflexive pronouns in every example.
She is getting married even though she is eighty-six years old.
Se casa aunque tiene ochenta y seis años.
If I get married, I don’t want you to come up with anything strange.
Si me caso, no quiero que se te ocurra nada extraño.
I want him to get married.
Quiero que él se case.
She has gotten married before, but we’re still getting married now.
Ella se ha casado antes, pero igual nos casamos ahora.
You have to come up with something so that I don’t have to get married.
Se te tiene que ocurrir algo para que yo no tenga que casarme.
There was an attack at our wedding and that’s why we didn’t get married.
Hubo un ataque en nuestra boda y por eso no nos casamos.
You’ll be happy if you get married.
Estarás feliz si te casas.
They got married last week, even though he didn’t want to get married.
Se casaron la semana pasada, aunque él no quería casarse.
Needless to say, you can’t get married without me.
Está por demás decir que no puedes casarte sin mí.
He doesn’t want me to get married before finishing my degree program.
Él no quiere que me case antes de terminar mi carrera.
She got married in the same place that I got married.
Se casó en el mismo lugar que yo me casé.
He isn’t going to get married.
No se va a casar.
You got married in the year eighty-one.
Te casaste en el año ochenta y uno.
So when would you ever use Casar in a non-pronominal way? Check out this example:
This is where Pedro married Juan and Sofía.
Aquí Pedro casó a Juan y Sofía.
So here the sense is that Pedro was the officiant for Juan and Sofía. So this does happen sometimes, but it’s really not that frequent.
Another use of this verb is to talk about parents marrying their kids off. For example:
They've married off all their children.
Han casado a todos sus hijos.
But what’s much more common than both of these uses is simply to talk about two people getting married or someone marrying their spouse. This is how we’ll primarily practice this verb.
For more practice with any of this, feel free to dig deeper at LCSPodcast.com/207. Or if you’re ready, let’s go on to today’s final quiz.
I have loved him for ninety-one days.
Lo he amado por noventa y un días.
He will come up with something for the wedding.
Se le ocurrirá algo para la boda.
Don’t fall asleep! I’m going to get married in a couple of hours.
¡No te duermas! Voy a casarme en un par de horas.
This is a silly fight, you love her.
Esta es una pelea tonta, tú la amas.
If you come up with a good idea, please tell me what it is.
Si se te ocurre una buena idea, por favor dime qué es.
You can’t fall asleep during the race.
No te puedes dormir durante la carrera.
I want you to sleep now so there aren't any surprises later.
Quiero que duermas ahora para que no haya sorpresas después.
She doesn’t love you, but I love you.
Ella no te ama, pero yo te amo.
We heard ninety-two songs, not eighty-three.
Escuchamos noventa y dos canciones, no ochenta y tres.
He has come up with a good project, to his surprise.
Se le ha ocurrido un buen proyecto, para su sorpresa.
I’m coming up with a good plan for our business.
Se me está ocurriendo un buen plan para nuestro negocio.
He always sleeps during our meetings.
Siempre duerme durante nuestras reuniones.
He slept in that house for ninety-nine days.
Durmió en esa casa por noventa y nueve días.
When I get married, I’ll have that song at my wedding, because I like the lyrics.
Cuando me case, voy a tener esa canción en mi boda porque me gusta la letra.
She loved you, but you didn’t love her and that’s why you didn’t marry each other.
Ella te amaba, pero tú no la amabas y por eso no se casaron.
They love each other and they are going to get married next month.
Se aman y van a casarse el próximo mes.
We got married in the year eighty-eight and it was a success.
Nos casamos en el año ochenta y ocho y fue un éxito.
You always come up with the best ideas, this is number ninety-six.
Siempre se te ocurren las mejores ideas, esta es la número noventa y seis.
You have to get married or it would be a mistake.
Tienes que casarte o sería un error.
I haven’t slept since she got married.
No he dormido desde que ella se casó.
She can love you and then you can get married.
Ella te puede amar y luego ustedes se pueden casar.
I loved him, so I married him.
Lo amaba, entonces me casé con él.
If we get married, I’ll change the first letter of my name.
Si nos casamos, cambiaré la primera letra de mi nombre.
I slept a lot because that music gives me calm.
Dormí mucho porque esa música me da calma.
After getting married, we came up with the best idea.
Después de casarnos, se nos ocurrió la mejor idea.
If you get married, I get married.
Si te casas, yo me caso.
We had gotten married before the year eighty-nine because we love each other.
Nos habíamos casado antes del año ochenta y nueve porque nos amamos.
She wants me to sleep before our mission.
Ella quiere que yo duerma antes de nuestra misión.
I’ll finish this task so that she sleeps.
Terminaré esta tarea para que ella duerma.
I don’t want her to get married, because if she gets married it will be bad for me.
No quiero que se case, porque si se casa será malo para mí.
You got married eighty hours ago and I’ve been sleeping since then.
Te casaste hace ochenta horas y yo he estado durmiendo desde entonces.
I don’t sleep in the same manner that you sleep.
No duermo de la misma manera que tu duermes.
For more practice with all of this, go to LCSPodcast.com/207.
In tomorrow’s episode, we’ll learn some interesting uses of Ser and Estar that we haven’t covered yet.
This show is brought to you by LearnCraftSpanish.com. The Spanish voice in this episode was our coach Michael Agudelo. Our music was performed by the Seattle Marimba Quartet, and I’m Timothy, encouraging you to do the hard work of learning Spanish. Acquiring a second language is one of the most fulfilling things you can do, so start your fluency journey today at LCSPodcast.com.
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