Morir

Por favor no mueras.

Intro: Join us on a rigorous, step-by-step journey to fluency. I’m Timothy and this is LearnCraft Spanish.

Let’s explore the Spanish verb Morir, which means “to die”. Just like in English, this can refer either to the literal death of a person or creature or to the death of a device when it runs out of battery. For example:

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Yikes, my phone is going to die!

¡Ay, mi teléfono va a morir!

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This verb has several irregularities, and to begin with, the participle is not “morido”, but muerto. For example:

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I got sad upon hearing that her dog had died.

Me puse triste al oír que su perro había muerto.

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Of course, this word has the same spelling and pronunciation as our adjective for “dead”, muerto, but you won’t confuse these; you can always tell when muerto is being used as a participle, because it will come after a conjugation of Haber.

Let’s practice morir and muerto.

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He hasn’t died yet.

No ha muerto aún.

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He doesn’t have to die for this.

No tiene que morir por esto.

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She hasn’t died and doesn’t want to die.

No ha muerto y no quiere morir.

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My car has died and I don’t know what to do.

Mi auto ha muerto y no sé qué hacer.

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Everyone has to die some day.

Todos tienen que morir algún día.

The present-tense conjugations of Morir are irregular in the same way that the present-tense conjugations of Poder are irregular. So you would expect morir to turn into “moro”, “more”, “mores”, and so on. But instead, we have a bent sound, and it’s spelled with a U-E instead of an O: We have muero, muere, mueres, and mueren. So this is just like Poder, because in Poder, instead of “podo” and “pode” and so on, we have puedo, puede, puedes, and pueden.

However, this only happens when that first syllable is stressed. In the case of “we die”, morimos, the conjugation is perfectly regular, just like in Poder the form for “we are able” is podemos. Incidentally, we discussed something like this before when we were exploring the verb Pensar, in Episode 117. So for a discussion of why stem changes happen in some Spanish verb conjugations, I recommend reviewing Episode 117.

Let’s go ahead and get some practice with the present-tense forms of Morir.

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Hey! If they die, it’s going to be a problem.

¡Oye! Si mueren, va a ser un problema.

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I don’t die in the movie.

No muero en la película.

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If you die, we die.

Si mueres, morimos.

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I think she doesn’t die in the end.

Creo que no muere al final.

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Here’s another example using muero, and this will use an idiomatic use of Morir to indicate “dying to do something”. This happens in Spanish just like in English, when someone really wants something and they say they’re “dying” to do it. Check out what happens here:

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I’m dying to see what she did.

Muero por ver lo que ella hizo.

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So the idiom uses a conjugation of Morir, and then por, and then an infinitive. It’s like saying that you die because of wanting to do something, although the wanting is implied. Try it yourself in this next example:

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She’s dying to have that.

Ella muere por tener eso.

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All right, now let’s learn the subjunctive forms. As usual, most of the subjunctive forms have the same stem change as many of the present-tense forms. The most common form is muera. And then check out how you can use the negative imperative no mueras:

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Be careful, please don’t die.

Ten cuidado, por favor no mueras.

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Let’s practice these.

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I don’t want you (formal) to die.

No quiero que usted muera.

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It’s not possible for me to die.

No es posible que yo muera.

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Please, don’t die, this is not safe.

Por favor, no mueras, esto no es seguro.

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She doesn’t want you to die, you’re too small.

Ella no quiere que mueras, eres demasiado pequeño.

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Maybe she dies at the end.

Quizás muera al final.

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Now the weirdest thing about the verb Morir is that the preterite is also irregular. This is a verb ending in IR, and so we would expect the preterite forms to be morí, “morió”, moriste, “morieron”, and morimos. Well, the verb does follow this pattern, but two of the forms depart from it slightly: for “he/she” died, instead of “morió”, we actually have murió, spelled with a letter U. And it’s the same for “they died”: Instead of “morieron”, we have murieron.

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Let’s practice the preterite forms.

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They died ten years ago.

Murieron hace diez años.

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I died in the game three times.

Morí en el juego tres veces.

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Luckily, we didn’t die in that occurrence.

Por suerte, no morimos en ese hecho.

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He hears that she died.

Él oye que ella murió.

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You didn’t die! You’re alive(f)!

¡No moriste! ¡Estás viva!

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The person in that picture died a long time ago.

La persona en esa foto murió hace mucho tiempo.

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Our last form to learn is the gerund, which is muriendo. We would expect this to be “moriendo”, but it does the same thing with the letter U that some of the preterite forms do. So for example:

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She pretends that she’s dying.

Hace de cuenta que está muriendo.

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Try to predict the Spanish for this next one:

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I need to go home; my phone is dying.

Necesito ir a casa; mi teléfono está muriendo.

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For more practice with any of this, feel free to dig deeper at LCSPodcast.com/141. Or if you’re ready, let’s go on to today’s final quiz.

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I work here and I’m going to work here until I die.

Trabajo aquí y voy a trabajar aquí hasta que muera.

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She doesn’t want to die and that’s why she listens carefully.

No quiere morir y por eso escucha con cuidado.

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If you die on the train, we also die.

Si mueres en el tren, nosotros también morimos.

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It’s not easy, this is the fourth time they almost die.

No es fácil, esta es la cuarta vez que casi mueren.

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We didn’t die on the plane.

No morimos en el avión.

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If I had died, I wouldn’t be talking with you.

Si hubiera muerto, no estaría hablando contigo.

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They died at the end of the long path.

Murieron al final del largo camino.

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Listen! I don’t want you to die.

¡Escucha! No quiero que mueras.

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Hey! This is less than what you had on the boat.

¡Oye! Esto es menos de lo que tenías en el barco.

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I don’t die because I’m very strong.

No muero porque soy muy fuerte.

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He died with more than three.

Murió con más de tres.

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He looks like the second person who had died.

Se parece a la segunda persona que había muerto.

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You almost died in the air, you need to be more careful.

Casi moriste en el aire, tienes que tener más cuidado.

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This is very difficult, she almost dies.

Esto es muy difícil, casi muere.

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He looks like his older brother, the one that died a couple of years ago.

Se parece a su hermano mayor, el que murió hace un par de años.

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My phone is dying, I have to go home before it dies.

Mi teléfono está muriendo, tengo que ir a casa antes de que muera.

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Don’t worry, I didn’t die, I’m fine.

No te preocupes, no morí, estoy bien.

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Please don’t die, I love you a lot.

Por favor no mueras, te quiero mucho.

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The third person in the picture didn’t want to die.

La tercera persona en la foto no quería morir.

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For more practice with all of this, go to LCSPodcast.com/141.

In tomorrow’s episode, we’ll learn the Spanish verb for “understanding”.

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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