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Let’s keep working on Dar — we’ll practice the preterite (di, dio, dieron, etc.) as well as the subjunctive forms, imperatives, and contractions.
Te daré lo que te dije.
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Today we’re going to learn more conjugations of Dar, the Spanish verb that means “give”. And actually, to start with, we’re going to work with imperatives. These are some of the most common forms because in Spanish, as in English, some of the most common orders (or imperatives) are saying things like “give me that!” or “please give it to her!”
The basic informal imperative for when you’re talking to one person is da. For example:
Please take a walk afterwards.
Por favor da una vuelta después.
It’s interesting that this form, da, is exactly the same as the form that means “he gives” or “she gives”. But it’s very easy to tell from context whether it’s being used in a statement or in an imperative.
And that’s partly because the imperatives of this verb almost always involve contractions. The most common forms are dame, which means “give me” or “give to me”, and dale, which means “give to him/her”. Here are some examples:
Give me that!
¡Dame eso!
Give her the job that she wants.
Dale el trabajo que quiere.
In general, the verb Dar is almost never used without an indirect object pronoun, because when you give something to anyone, there’s a recipient.
So it’s also very common to use infinitive contractions, such as darme, darle, and darte. Here are some examples of those:
I’m here in order to give you this.
Estoy aquí para darte esto.
Do you want to give that to your mother?
¿Quieres darle eso a tu madre?
They were going to give me something.
Iban a darme algo.
Let’s practice our imperatives and contractions of Dar.
She was going to give him that later.
Ella iba a darle eso luego.
I don’t have to give you anything.
No tengo que darte nada.
Give him a chance!
¡Dale una oportunidad!
She still has to give me that.
Aún tiene que darme eso.
Give him that thing and give me this!
¡Dale esa cosa y dame esto!
When you talk about giving in the past, you’ll almost always use the preterite, because giving tends to be a one-time thing. So let’s learn the preterite forms of Dar.
The word for “I gave” is a tiny little word, di, spelled d-i. For example:
I gave her something yesterday.
Le di algo ayer.
The word for “he/she/usted gave” is dio, spelled d-i-o.
Let’s go ahead and practice these.
I gave him something that day.
Le di algo ese día.
You (formal) gave them the house?
¿Les dio la casa?
He gave me what I had to have today.
Me dio lo que tenía que tener hoy.
I’m telling you that I didn’t give it to them.
Te digo que no se lo di.
The rest of the preterite forms of Dar start with d-i and rhyme with the preterite forms of Ir: “you gave” is diste, “they gave” is dieron, and “we gave” is dimos. For example:
Did you give her her things?
¿Le diste sus cosas?
We gave them what they gave us.
Les dimos lo que nos dieron.
Incidentally, in this sentence, to say “we gave them back what they gave us”, you could actually use de vuelta. Check this out:
We gave them back what they gave us.
Les dimos de vuelta lo que nos dieron.
So this works because de vuelta doesn’t just mean “again”, it can also mean “in return” or “back” in this specific way.
Let’s practice all the preterite forms of Dar, as well as this use of de vuelta.
They gave him his things back.
Le dieron sus cosas de vuelta.
You gave me what she gave you.
Me diste lo que te dio.
I gave him the house back.
Le di la casa de vuelta.
They gave me a house.
Me dieron una casa.
You gave us that thing and we gave it to the young lady.
Nos diste esa cosa y se la dimos a la señorita.
Let’s also learn a couple of common future-tense conjugations. “I will give” is daré, just like estaré, and “he/she/usted will give” is dará, just like estará. For example:
I will give you something tomorrow.
Te daré algo mañana.
(formal) Will you give us what we want?
¿Usted nos dará lo que queremos?
Let’s practice these.
I will give him something else.
Le daré algo más.
She will give them her help.
Les dará su ayuda.
You (formal) will give them that.
Usted les dará eso.
Yesterday she gave me that and I’ll give it to you tomorrow.
Ayer ella me dio algo y yo te lo daré mañana.
Finally, let’s learn the subjunctive forms of Dar. Remember that when we made Estar subjunctive, the third-person singular form changed from está to esté. Well, in Dar’s case, the third-person singular form changes from da to dé. For example:
I want him to give me that.
Quiero que él me dé eso.
This word is spelled with an accent mark on the E, not because it needs it for pronunciation, but to distinguish it in spelling from the extremely common preposition de.
This word, dé, is also the first-person subjunctive form. For example:
Do you want me to give you something else?
¿Quieres que te dé algo más?
The other forms are des, den, and demos. (These forms are not spelled with an accent mark.)
Let’s practice using the subjunctive forms of Dar.
She wants me to give her the phone.
Quiere que yo le dé the phone.
Quiere que yo le dé el teléfono.
I want you (formal) to give them something.
Quiero que usted les dé algo.
I want her to give me that.
Quiero que me dé eso.
I don’t want them to give it to you.
No quiero que te lo den.
I made it so that you give it to them.
Lo hice para que se lo des.
I’m not sure(f) we’ll give it back to them.
No estoy segura de que se lo demos de vuelta.
Remember that you can dive more deeply into any of this using the free materials here. Now, if you’re ready, let’s go on to today’s final quiz.
You didn’t give me anything.
No me diste nada.
I was telling them that before.
Les decía eso antes.
She gives me food and you give me drinks.
Ella me da food y tú me das drinks.
Ella me da comida y tú me das bebidas.
She wants me to give them something.
Quiere que yo les dé algo.
If you do it, then I am going to give you a reward.
Si lo haces, entonces te voy a dar a reward.
Si lo haces, entonces te voy a dar una recompensa.
Give him what we told you.
Dale lo que te dijimos.
I gave them the notebooks and she gave them the pencils.
Yo les di the notebooks y ella les dio the pencils.
Yo les di los cuadernos y ella les dio los lápices.
Tomorrow I’ll give you something else.
Mañana te daré algo más.
They are giving us this, but they don’t want us to give it to anyone.
Nos dan esto, pero no quieren que se lo demos a nadie.
I want her to give you those things in this manner.
Quiero que ella te dé esas cosas de esta manera.
Tell me if I have to pay attention to him anew.
Dime si tengo que hacerle caso de nuevo.
He will give me back what we gave him.
Nos dará de vuelta lo que le dimos.
You have to give me something before that week.
Tienes que darme algo antes de esa semana.
They say that by then they are going to give it to him.
Dicen que para entonces se lo van a dar.
You said you didn’t want to give him the answers.
Dijiste que no querías darle the answers.
Dijiste que no querías darle las respuestas.
If I give them this, then they will have to give you something.
Si les doy esto, entonces tendrán que darte algo.
I don’t want you to give this to my friend.
No quiero que le des esto a mi amigo.
Give good advice while we’re on the way.
Da good advice mientras estamos de camino.
Da buenos consejos mientras estamos de camino.
He says that you give free food.
Él dice que tú das free food.
Él dice que tú das comida gratis.
Tell the truth so that they give you something.
Di la verdad para que te den algo.
Give me the things afterwards.
Dame las cosas después.
While you take the walk, I’m going to do this.
Mientras das la vuelta, yo voy a hacer esto.
We’re giving the case to the officer after this problem.
Le damos el caso al officer después de este problema.
Le damos el caso al oficial después de este problema.
I’m still giving them lunch.
Todavía les estoy dando lunch.
Todavía les estoy dando el almuerzo.
You have to tell me what the question was.
Tienes que decirme cuál fue la pregunta.
I have to tell you that I haven’t given it back.
Tengo que decirte que no lo he dado de vuelta.
They gave me their things late.
Me dieron sus cosas tarde.
Do you want to go for a walk? It’s all the same to me.
¿Quieres dar una vuelta? Me da lo mismo.
To get more practice with these sentences, join the free course here and quiz yourself with them until you’re acing this.
In tomorrow’s episode, we’ll learn the last of our essential conjunctions and pronouns, including the words for “although” and “while”.
This show is brought to you by LearnCraftSpanish.com. Our music was provided 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 using our free course — join here.
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