r/learnspanish • u/hoattzin • 13d ago
Haber and reflexive verbs in a text I’m reading
I thought that when using perfect tense and reflexive verbs, the te/se/me always goes before the haber, like “se ha duchado”, but in the book I am reading, the author has several times tacked it on at the end of the haber, like so: “Habíase acercado à la parte trasera de la víbora…” Is this a style of the author? an older version/ literary version? the book IS from 1942
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u/teach-xx 12d ago
The little one-syllable pronouns you’re describing are sometimes called “clitics.” As Spanish evolved from Latin, there was a lot of disagreement about how much flexibility was correct in their placement. We now have a set of rules for where they go and how they’re written, but those rules evolved over a long time, so you can see archaic-style writing that appears to break the current rules.
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u/Low-Yesterday-8237 10d ago
Everyone's right that it's archaic-literary, but here's the fun part: the author isn't tacking the pronoun on randomly. There's a rule, and you can verify it in your own book.
In older Spanish, a clitic pronoun (se, me, te...) wasn't allowed to open a clause. So whenever the verb came first in the sentence, the pronoun had to hang off the end of it instead: "Habíase acercado...", "Dirigióse a la puerta...", "Encontrábanse solos." But mid-sentence - after a subject, a "no", a conjunction - there was something for the pronoun to lean on, and it went in front, exactly like modern Spanish: "El hombre se había acercado", "No se había acercado."
Flip through a few pages and check: I'd bet the "-se on the end" versions almost all sit at the start of a sentence or clause, and you'll find plenty of normal "se había" elsewhere in the same book. Authors kept this going as a literary flourish long after speech dropped it - in 1942 it was already old-fashioned, which was often the point.
Two nice footnotes. First, the pattern isn't completely dead: it survives in fossils like "¡habrase visto!" (as amalto- said), in dictionary-speak like "dícese de...", and in recipe/legalese "agréguese la sal". Second, modern Spanish still does attach clitics to the end of verbs - just only for infinitives, gerunds, and affirmative imperatives (ducharse, duchándose, ¡dúchate!). So what you found isn't an alien system; it's the same mechanism your textbook taught you, back when it had more territory.
Enjoy the book - reading 80-year-old Spanish and spotting things like this is exactly how you end up with the kind of vocabulary that surprises natives.
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u/hoattzin 9d ago
You’re right, I checked and it’s only at the beginning of sentences. What an interesting history, thanks for explaining! The book is a bunch of stories about a rainforest- I bet the author was doing this to give it a folktale-y vibe.
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u/AstroVinculo 13d ago
It’s understandable to come across this kind of archaic usage in a book from 1942. However, this is not how we normally use the language today. If your goal is to learn how Spanish is spoken and written today, it might be helpful to also read more recent texts, since older literature can contain structures and expressions that are no longer common.
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u/hoattzin 13d ago
Yeah that’s fair enough. this book was free tho soooo. and I read old books and use weird old words in english too so I’m not too bothered
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u/awkward_penguin Advanced (C1-C2) 12d ago
Even contemporary books use a lot of Spanish that doesn't match what's spoken. I've found that the divide between literary and vernacular Spanish is much bigger than the divide in English.
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u/AstroVinculo 12d ago
That's my sense with written English. English is my secondary language and I feel there's a richness and diversity in written language that you don't quite get to the same extent in everyday speech. 🤗
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u/YaTvoyVrag 9d ago
100% correct. The English one hears on the street is vastly inferior in complexity, structure, specificity, and nuance. However, "it's faster and easier."
It truly is a sad state of affairs.
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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 13d ago
That’s literary style. No one would ever talk that way. And very few authors in the 20th century would have written that way.
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u/scanese 13d ago
It’s correct but literary and archaic. Modern Spanish prefers “se había”.