How To Say Lets in Spanish

Spanish has two main ways of making suggestions or commands to a group that includes the person speaking. Both of them can be used as the equivalent of the English lets in a sentence such as Lets leave. Imperative Mood The most straightforward way is to use the first-person plural imperative mood, which takes the same form as the first-person plural form of the subjunctive mood. In regular -ar verbs, the ending is replaced by -emos, and in -er and -ir verbs, the ending is replaced by -amos: Bailemos un vals. Lets dance a waltz.Compremos una casa en Espaà ±a. Lets buy a house in Spain.Hagamos un trato. Lets make a deal.Tratemos de ser felices. Lets try to be happy. If youre using the imperative form of a reflexive verb, the -emos ending becomes -à ©monos, and the -amos ending becomes -à ¡monos. In other words, the -nos ending is added to the verb, but the -s is dropped before the pronoun: Levantà ©monos a las seis de la maà ±ana. Lets get up at 6 a.m.Lavà ©monos las manos. Lets wash our hands.Rià ¡monos un ratito. Lets laugh a little bit. (Rà ©irse is an irregular verb.) In the negative form, however, the pronoun comes before the verb: No nos mejoremos. Lets not improve ourselves. Using Vamos A Probably more common than the imperative mood, and even easier to learn, is to use the first-person plural form of ir followed by a, i.e., vamos a, followed by the infinitive: Vamos a nadar. Lets go swimming.Vamos a casarnos. Lets get married.Vamos a estudiar. Lets study.Vamos a viajar a Italia. Lets go to Italy. You may note that vamos a infinitive can also mean we are going to infinitive, so the first sample sentence above could also mean We are going to swim. Indeed, ir a infinitive is a very common substitute for the future tense in Spanish. In the first-person plural, then, context will determine what is meant. It is not uncommon when meaning lets to replace vamos a with simply a. For example, a ver is a very common way of saying lets see. Another Meaning for Let Us When translating from English, do not confuse lets as a suggestion to the group with let us as a way of asking for permission. For example, one way you might say let us help you would be Permà ­tenos ayudarte, where the verb permitir is used in the third person (the person being addressed) rather than the first person (the people who want to help).