Forum Rocket Spanish Spanish - Grammar Vayamos a un restaurante italiano que conozco.

Vayamos a un restaurante italiano que conozco.

Steven-W15

Steven-W15

Let's go to an Italian restaurant that I know.

Interesting (from a RS lession). It seems like I read previously on the forum here that when using "vayamos", it refers to just leaving a place with no specific direction in mind; otherwise you would use "vamos".
Dan-H24

Dan-H24

It is the present subjunctive tense, right? So it is expressing a wish or desire that "we" should go to the restaurant? I haven't studied the subjunctive yet so I am just subjunctively hoping that I might be right...
Ava Dawn

Ava Dawn

I only know voy, vas, va, vamos vais van. I also know "vaya con Dios". Whether that's subjunctive, I am not sure.
Dan-H24

Dan-H24

"Vaya con Dios" is exactly how I started thinking about this. Again, I haven't yet studied subjunctive so I could be wrong, but I think this is a perfect example of use of the subjunctive. With it you are expressing the hope that someone "goes with God", or probably more accurately, God goes with him or her.

I think "Vaya con Dios" is yet another example of the elegance of the Spanish language.
Steven-W15

Steven-W15

Good thoughts. The forms for the subjunctive and imperative (in the negative) are identical. I am guessing that "Vayamos a un restaurant" would be more of a command - stronger than "Vamos a un restaurant". To be in the subjunctive "May we go to a restaurant", you would generally see a "Que" in front of the phrase though not always "¡Viva el rey!". Interesting.

Anyway, I suspect that a previous thread regarding "vayamos" being limited to leaving a place (as opposed to going to a specific destination) would not be accurate.
ricardo-rich

ricardo-rich

Hola a todos,
Here's a link addressing this:

http://spanish.about.com/od/specificverbs/a/ir_plural_imper.htm

Saludos,

Ricardo
Ava Dawn

Ava Dawn

I read the link that Rich shared but I would like someone to summarize it or discuss it further.
Steven-W15

Steven-W15

Wow. Good summary. It may be that in our original discussion, the word being addressed was "vámonos" (as opposed to vayámonos).
Robert-C7

Robert-C7

The article confirmed what I thought.  Saying "vayamos a un restaurante..." is a suggestion, like saying "let's go to a restaurant..." while "vámonos a un restaurante..." is more of a command, like "hurry up, let's go to a restaurant".

Also, grammatically, "vamos a un restaurante" is an indicative statement of fact, "we go to a restaurante", while "vayamos a un restaurante" is a present subjunctive statement of something that might happen, or something that we desire to happen.

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