The Double Verb-Subject Confusion

Very beginning Spanish learners who happen to be English speakers tend to confuse conjugated verbs as subjects. When this happens, you get two conjugated verbs right next to each other in the same sentence.

Recently, a student of mine said the following sentence:

"Son llamo Alicia."

I've also heard students say:

"Me llamo es Carlos."

Perhaps there is some confusion with the words used to clearly state what you are saying. After all, verbs and subjects can be a bit tricky in Spanish.

Both examples above have two conjugated verbs in the sentence: son and llamo in the first and llamo and es in the second. Son means 'they (you all) are.' Llamo is part of the reflexive verb, llamarse, or 'to call oneself.' Es is part of the same verb as son, but means 'he, she, you or it is.'

If we translate the first example, it would say:

"They are I call Alice."

And the second example would be:

"I call myself is Carl."

As you can see, with two conjugated verbs in the same sentence, it does not make much sense at all. Remember your subjects are the following:

Yo -- I

Tú -- You (familiar/informal)

El, Ella, Vd. -- He, She, You (formal)

Nosotros/Nosotras -- We

Vosotros/Vosotras -- You All, They (familiar/informal)

Ellos, Ellas, Vds. -- They, You All (formal)

Know the subject of your sentence first. In the above examples, you would most likely use "Yo" or I to state who you are. Then you will need a verb to express what you are doing:

Ser		Llamarse
To be		To call oneself
(Yo) Soy	I am	(Yo) Me llamo	I call myself
(Tú) Eres	You are	(Tú) Te llamas	You call yourself
(El, Ella, Vd.) Es	He, She or You are	(El, Ella, Vd.) Se llama	He, She or You call yourself
(Nosotros/Nosotras) Somos	We are	(Nosotros/Nosotras) Nos llamamos	We call ourselves
(Vosotros/Vosotras) Soís	You all, They  are	(Vosotros/Vosotras) Os llamáis	You all, They call yourselves
(Ellos, Ellas, Vds.) Son	They, You all are	(Ellos, Ellas, Vds.) Se llaman	They, You all call yourselves

You may combine the subject and the conjugated verb together in the sentence to emphasize who you are speaking about, but it is not recommended nor necessary as the verb in its conjugated form will already let the listener/reader know the subject of the sentence.

So going back to the two examples at the beginning, you could say the following:

"(Yo) Soy Alicia." or "(Yo) Me llamo Alicia."

And in the second example:

"(Yo) Me llamo Carlos." or "(Yo) Soy Carlos."

To wrap up, know who the subject of your sentence is (I, you, he, she, we, they, you all, etc.), then conjugate the verb to that subject and you're all set! Pretty simple, right? Let me know if you run into any questions on the above information.

¡Hasta luego!
~Keith