Followup "se"/"me"

Still working on the se and me questions. I thought I had it worked out till I saw, El monje se lleva la comida. What is the reason for the "se" I thought the above phase would be fine without the "se" Thanks in advance... tjv

Hi again, llavar is the infinitive of "to take". llavarse is the reflexive infinitive of "to take for oneself". The first thing you do is to drop the se at the end of llavarse leaving llavar. This is then conjugated to reflect the subject which is this case is "el". This leaves you with "lleva", however in doing this you now need to use the correct reflexive pronoun in front of lleva which is "se". this tells you that something is being taken by someone for himself or herself.Translated this will now say "he takes the food for himself." Now for further clarification you can add who takes the food for himself, in this case it is El monje. So, now the translation is "The monk is taking the food for himself. I think you may being getting confused with the se before the llava and the se after the llaver. Se tagged on the end of a verb simply means that it is reflexive. The se that you use in front of the verb is just one of the various subject pronouns used with reflexive verbs, ie me, se, etc depending on who the verb is reflecting upon. I hope I haven't confused you further. Regards, Steve

Just a brief correction to Steve's response. The verb is ll*e*var(se), not ll*a*var(se).

Hi again, Sorry for the spelling error. Of course it is llevar and not llavar. Thanks to nohablo for the correction. Regards, Steve

Hi sjlkh and nohablo, Thanks for the help, I almost have it now.... Could the "se" mean something like, "he took the food himself" rather than "he took the food for himself"? Granted a very slight difference, but it helps to understand it better.... Thanks again.... tjv

Hi tjv, Yes, you are correct, it could be exactly as you say. I was trying to explain that the reflexive verb is an action to the subject by the subject. In this case himself shown by the conjugation of "llevar(se)" to "lleva" preceded by "se". If you were talking about yourself (yo/I) rather than he/she(el/ella) then the verb would be conjugated to "llevo" and preceded by "me". Regards, Steve

Steve, Thanks... I finally got it!!!! tjv

tjv, De nada. Steve