Los verbos reflexivos
English marks these actions with 'myself, yourself, herself': I wash myself, she dresses herself. Spanish does the same job with a short pronoun standing in front of the verb — me, te, se, nos, se — and the dictionary flags the verb by hanging -se on the end of the infinitive: lavarse, levantarse, llamarse. Five rows, and the one for plural 'you' is se, the very same se you use for ellos, because plural 'you' across Latin America is ustedes.
Five rows, four pronouns
yo me, tú te, él/ella/usted se, nosotros nos, ustedes/ellos/ellas se. That is the complete set — there is no sixth row waiting for you, and no separate pronoun for a group of friends. When you ask your cousins whether they washed their hands you use se, exactly as you would with strangers: ¿Ya se lavaron las manos? The pronoun always matches the subject and changes the instant the subject does: I wash myself is me lavo, he washes himself is se lava, we wash ourselves is nos lavamos.
levantarse, all the way down
yo me levanto (I get up). tú te levantas. él/ella/usted se levanta. nosotros nos levantamos. ustedes/ellos/ellas se levantan. Look at what the verb is doing: nothing unusual. Those are the plain -ar endings from lesson 8, untouched. The only new thing is the small word riding in front of them. Once you know the pronoun, every verb takes it the same way: me llamo, te bañas, se viste, nos sentamos, se van.
Where the pronoun sits
Right in front of the conjugated verb, glued to it as a pair: Me baño en la mañana. A no sits outside that pair and never slips inside it: No me baño en la noche. The preterite changes nothing about the seating: Me levanté temprano. — and that preterite is what you actually say about this morning across Latin America; the compound me he levantado has a different job that comes later. When an infinitive is in the sentence you get a free choice: hang the pronoun on the front or glue it onto the infinitive's tail. Voy a bañarme and Me voy a bañar are one and the same sentence, both completely natural. What you must not do is use it twice in one sentence.
The verbs you will use every single day
despertarse — to wake up, with the e turning into ie: me despierto. levantarse — to get out of bed, which is a separate event from opening your eyes. bañarse — the everyday word for showering across most of Latin America; ducharse is understood everywhere, but in Mexico, Colombia or Peru you will hear me baño far more often. lavarse — me lavo los dientes (plenty of people say me cepillo los dientes; both are ordinary). vestirse, with the e turning into i: me visto. sentarse, e into ie: me siento. acostarse, o into ue: me acuesto. And irse: me voy, te vas, se va.
Adding -se can hand you a different verb
Sometimes the pronoun does not mean 'to myself' at all — it gives you a new word, so learn these as pairs. ir is to go, irse is to leave: Voy al mercado against Ya me voy. dormir is to sleep, dormirse is to fall asleep, with the o turning into ue: Me duermo rápido. llamar is to call somebody, llamarse is to be named: Llamo a Camila against Me llamo Camila. comer is to eat, comerse is to finish something off completely: Se comió todo el pan. The dictionary lists these separately, and so should your memory.
Two things you will hear before you formally learn them
On a command the pronoun climbs onto the back of the verb, which is why those words look so long: ¡Siéntense! to a table full of people, ¡Levántate! to one. Commands get a lesson of their own further on — for now just recognize the shape. The second thing is the diminutive, which is everywhere and is not about size. Ahorita me baño can mean in a second, in an hour, or vaguely later today, depending on the country and on the tone. Acuéstate tempranito is warmth, not arithmetic: -ito is simply how affection gets into a Latin American sentence.
