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Spanish Word of the Day Archive
Monday October 29, 2007
dormir, verb:
to sleep
The basic use of dormir is to sleep:
No hagas mucho ruido, que Rubén está durmiendo.
Don’t make a lot of noise, Ruben’s sleeping.
Notice how the -o- of the stem changes to -u- in the -endo form in the example above.
Dormir also expresses several other meanings that in English we express with different words or phrases than sleep. It can be used with an object to mean to send ... to sleep:
La música clásica me duerme.
Classical music sends me to sleep.
In the reflexive, dormirse, it means to fall asleep:
Al poco rato se durmió.
Shortly afterwards he fell asleep.
And you use the participle, dormido, with estar to mean to be asleep:
Ahora los niños están dormidos.
The children are asleep now.
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