“Ponerse”, “volverse”, “hacerse”, “quedarse”: four “become”
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…What people write and what people sayWhat changes between the two: the “ser” passive, “cuyo”, the tenses that survive only in…“Me alegro DE que” but “pienso QUE”Deciding whether a verb or an expression needs “de” in front of “que”: “me acuerdo de…The rule, in three lines
Four verbs for one English become: ponerse for a passing state (se puso rojo), volverse for a lasting change you did not choose (se volvió desconfiado), hacerse for one you did (se hizo médico) and quedarse for what is left after something happens (se quedó ciego).
The usual slip. Using one of them for all four, usually hacerse, because it is what the dictionary offers for «become».
Why it catches you out. English has one verb and lets the adjective do the work: become angry, become rich, become blind. Spanish encodes in the VERB how the change happened — sudden, gradual, chosen, suffered — so you have to decide something your own language never asked you about.