“Ir” or “irse”, “comer” or “comerse”
CEFR C1
“Si hubiera sabido…”: the past that did not happenThe unreal past: “si hubiera sabido, habría venido”, and the mixed conditions where one…“Por más que lo intente”, “a fin de que sepas”The conjunctions that always take the subjunctive —“para que”, “a fin de que”, “sin…What you can say to whomTelling apart what belongs in a message to a friend, in an email to a stranger and in a…“Por” and “para”, the hard halfThe pairs where both are possible and the meaning changes: “estar por” against “estar…“Ponerse”, “volverse”, “hacerse”, “quedarse”: four “become”Choosing among the four: “ponerse” for a passing state, “volverse” for a lasting change…What people write and what people sayWhat changes between the two: the “ser” passive, “cuyo”, the tenses that survive only in…The rule, in three lines
The pronoun is not decoration. Ir is to go and irse is to leave; comer is to eat and comerse is to eat the whole thing; dormir is to sleep and dormirse is to fall asleep. And a few pairs change meaning outright: acordar is to agree, acordarse is to remember.
The usual slip. Dropping it because it looks optional, so me voy becomes voy and the goodbye disappears.
Why it catches you out. English keeps these apart with separate words — go and leave, eat and eat up, sleep and fall asleep — so when the Spanish pair shares one verb you read the pronoun as grammar you can skip. It is not grammar: it is half the meaning. And it is not the reflexive you met at A2 either, because nobody is doing anything to themselves.