Los verbos de cambio
Lesson 43 handed you three of these in passing. Here is the whole system, because this is the place where English and Spanish stop lining up. English has one verb doing all the work — 'become', with 'get' and 'turn' helping out — and lets the rest of the sentence carry the nuance. Spanish spends five verbs on the job and makes you choose before you open your mouth: ponerse for the change that wears off, volverse for the one that does not, hacerse for the one with work or years inside it, llegar a ser for the top of a long climb, and quedarse for whatever a change leaves behind. Two questions sort them out nearly every time. Is the word after the verb an adjective or a noun? And did the change happen to you, or did you build it? Then one habit worth having before any of the five: everyday speech usually already owns a single verb for the change — enojarse, enfermarse, engordar, oscurecer — and reaches for that first.
Ponerse — the change that wears off
ponerse takes an ADJECTIVE and nothing else. It is the fast turn, usually emotional or physical, and usually over by dinner: Se puso roja. Me pongo nervioso cuando hablo en público. Se puso feliz con la noticia. La sopa se puso fría. The adjective agrees with whoever the change lands on, so a woman says Me puse nerviosa and a group says Nos pusimos nerviosos. The preterite is where you will use it most, and it is five rows: me puse, te pusiste, se puso, nos pusimos, se pusieron — that last one covering ustedes and ellos at once, so ¿Se pusieron nerviosos? is what you ask two friends and two strangers alike. The hard limit is the noun: a profession, a religion or a job title is a noun, so me pongo doctor is not Spanish and never becomes Spanish. Built on the same verb but doing a different job, ponerse a plus an infinitive means to start suddenly: Se puso a llorar. Nos pusimos a cocinar a medianoche. And the region has its own set: ponerse las pilas is to get moving, ponerse trucha in Mexico is to look sharp, ponerse de malas is to get into a bad mood.
Volverse — the change that stays
volverse takes an adjective, or a noun WITH an article, and it says the person or thing turned into something else for good. It is deep, it is not chosen, and most of the time it is not good news: Se volvió desconfiada. Se volvió loco. El barrio se volvió carísimo. Se volvió un problema. That article is the tell — un problema, una persona amargada — because a bare noun sends you to hacerse instead: se hizo abogada, never se volvió abogada. Where ponerse wears off, this one does not, and putting it where ponerse belongs sounds alarming: Se volvió roja claims a permanent condition. Two more lives of the same verb. volver loco a alguien is to drive them up the wall — Ese ruido me vuelve loca — though Me vuelve loco el ceviche is pure enthusiasm. And without the pronoun, volver a plus an infinitive is to do something again: Volvió a llamar. For a change with no opinion attached to it, the neutral cousin is convertirse en plus a noun: La casa se convirtió en museo. Se convirtió en la mejor jugadora del país. Formal writing also uses transformarse en.
Hacerse — the one with work inside it
hacerse is the slow becoming you had a hand in. With a BARE noun — no article — it covers professions, religions, memberships and allegiances: Se hizo contadora. Se hizo evangélico. Nos hicimos socios del club. Se hicieron amigos. With an adjective it covers wealth, fame and reputation earned over time: Se hizo rico vendiendo tacos. Se hizo famoso con un video. The preterite again runs five rows: me hice, te hiciste, se hizo, nos hicimos, se hicieron. It also works with no subject at all, for time and light: Se hizo tarde. Se hizo de noche antes de llegar. Slip an extra pronoun in and the lateness becomes yours — Se me hizo tarde, it got late on me — a construction this region leans on heavily, and in Mexico se me hizo on its own means it finally came off: Al fin se me hizo el viaje. Two idioms live here too: hacerse el tonto and hacerse la loca are to play dumb, and hacerse de is to come by something — Se hizo de un carro usado.
Llegar a ser — the top of a long climb
llegar a ser takes a noun or an adjective and puts all the weight on the end of a long road. It is the verb of biographies, obituaries and the evening news, so it sounds a size more formal than the other four: Llegó a ser directora del hospital. Llegó a ser presidenta del sindicato. Llegaron a ser muy buenos amigos. The difference from hacerse is worth memorizing as a pair, because both can sit in the same life: Se hizo maestra a los veinticinco y llegó a ser directora a los cuarenta. hacerse is the qualification; llegar a ser is the summit. Before a unique position the noun usually goes bare — llegó a ser presidente, not llegó a ser el presidente — though with a modifier the article comes back: llegó a ser la mejor cocinera del pueblo. It leans positive; for a change that went wrong, use volverse. The stiffer administrative version, common in documents, is pasar a ser: El terreno pasó a ser propiedad del municipio.
Quedarse — what the change leaves behind
quedarse plus an adjective or a participle is not the change itself but the state it leaves you in, and it leans toward loss: Se quedó solo. Me quedé sin trabajo. Se quedó callada toda la cena. Se quedó sordo del oído izquierdo. Me quedé dormido en el camión. Me quedé en blanco en el examen. The pattern quedarse sin is a whole family on its own — sin batería, sin luz, sin palabras, sin plata — and it is what an event took away from you. This is the same verb lesson 28 taught you as 'to stay', and the two senses sit peacefully side by side: Me quedé en la casa is where you stayed, Me quedé sin señal is what you lost. Drop the pronoun and quedar describes how a thing turned out rather than how a person was left: La casa quedó destruida. Me quedó bien el arroz. Quedamos en vernos el jueves is an agreement, and quedarse con algo is to keep it: Quédate con el cambio.
One adjective, five verbs
Run a single word through all five and the system becomes obvious. With triste: Se puso triste is this afternoon; Se volvió triste says the person changed; Se quedó triste is what the news left behind; se hizo triste and llegó a ser triste are not sentences anyone says. With rico: Se hizo rico is money he worked for; Se volvió rico sounds sudden, a lottery or an inheritance; Llegó a ser rico is the long formal road; and Se puso rico does not mean any of that, because with food rico is tasty — El caldo se puso rico — which is the trap from lesson 37 wearing a new hat. With a profession there is only one door: Se hizo enfermero, with llegar a ser available when the point is the climb, and nothing else. The decision fits in two moves. Bare noun after the verb — hacerse or llegar a ser. Noun with an article — volverse or convertirse en. Adjective — ponerse if it passes, volverse if it does not, quedarse if an event left it there.
What people reach for first
Before any of the five, check whether Spanish already has one verb for the change, because it usually does and a native speaker will use it. enojarse, alegrarse, asustarse, cansarse, aburrirse, calmarse, enamorarse, preocuparse; enfermarse — the region's form, where Spain says ponerse enfermo; engordar, adelgazar, envejecer, enriquecerse, mejorar, empeorar, oscurecer, amanecer. Me enfermé el fin de semana. Engordé tres kilos en diciembre. Oscureció temprano. Shorter, more common, and the first thing out of a mouth. Two more shapes worth owning. terminar and acabar plus a gerund or an adjective are the everyday 'ended up': Terminó siendo maestro. Terminamos siendo amigos. Acabó cansado de pelear. And ir plus a gerund draws the change out slowly, which none of the five can do on its own: Se fue poniendo nervioso. La ciudad se fue volviendo más cara. Fue haciéndose famoso de a poquito. Finally, the diminutive softens a change you do not want to state baldly: Se puso tristecito. Se quedó solita.
