caer

Caer means to fall — in the literal sense (objects, rain, leaves, governments) and in many figurative senses (a date falling on a day, prices falling, someone striking you as likeable). It is irregular in three predictable ways: the yo form is caigo (the yo-go pattern of tengo, salgo, pongo, hago); the third-person preterite and the gerund and -iendo forms insert a y between vowels (cayó, cayeron, cayendo, cayera); and the participle takes a written accent (caído) because the -ido would otherwise form a diphthong with the stem-final a. None of this is exotic — every one of these patterns recurs in other common verbs.

The verb also lives a very busy second life in Spain as a reflexive (caerse — to fall down), as the host of the accidental se construction (se me cayó el móvil — I dropped my phone), and in the indispensable idiom caer bien / mal a alguien, which means to be likeable / unlikeable to someone. If you want to sound like a Spaniard at a dinner party, me cae muy bien tu hermano is the line.

Non-finite forms

The participle caído has an obligatory written accent on the í. Without it (caido) the two vowels would form a diphthong and the stress would fall on the a; the accent forces ca-í-do in three separate syllables. The same accent appears in traído, oído, leído, reído, creído.

Indicative — simple tenses

Presente

The yo-go form caigo is the only irregularity in the present indicative; everywhere else caer takes the regular -er endings. Caéis takes a written accent to break the ae into two syllables.

Pretérito perfecto simple

Two features at once: (1) the third-person forms cayó and cayeron insert a y between two vowels — Spanish does not let an unstressed i sit between a and another vowel, so it converts to y; (2) every other form keeps the i but with a written accent (caí, caíste, caímos, caísteis) to mark the stress and prevent diphthong-formation. This pattern is shared by leer (leyó, leyeron, leí), creer (creyó, creí), huir (huyó), oír (oyó).

Pretérito imperfecto

Every form takes a written accent on the í to keep the a and the i in separate syllables (ca-í-a, three syllables, not two). The imperfect is otherwise perfectly regular.

Futuro simple

The future is built regularly on the full infinitive caer- — no dropped vowels.

Condicional

Indicative — compound tenses

Every compound tense uses the participle caído with its written accent.

Pretérito perfecto compuesto

Pretérito pluscuamperfecto

Futuro compuesto

Condicional compuesto

Subjunctive — simple tenses

Presente de subjuntivo

The whole subjunctive uses the irregular caig- stem (lifted from the yo caigo) — the standard rule for forming present subjunctives from yo-go verbs.

Imperfecto de subjuntivo (-ra / -se)

Built from the third-person plural preterite (cayeron), which means the y is present throughout the paradigm. Both -ra and -se sets are interchangeable; -ra dominates in Spain.

Subjunctive — compound tenses

Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo

Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo

Imperative

The affirmative vosotros form is caed, with the regular -d ending. Reflexive caerse forms drop the -d before -os: caeos (rarely used). The negative imperative comes from the present subjunctive.

Because telling someone "fall!" is rarely a real-world directive, the affirmative imperatives of caer are mostly used in negatives and warnings: ¡no te caigas!, ¡no os caigáis!, ¡cuidado, no caigan!

Caerse — the reflexive

When the subject undergoes the fall personally, peninsular Spanish almost always uses caerse. The reflexive marks the fall as something happening to the subject, not just an objective event:

• El libro cae al suelo. — The book falls to the floor. (neutral, the book is just an inanimate subject)
• Se me cae el libro. — I drop the book. (accidental, the book got away from me — see below)
• Me caí de la bici. — I fell off my bike. (I personally took a tumble; reflexive obligatory)

For people falling, caerse is the default. Me caí, te caíste, se cayó — never just caí of a person in everyday speech.

The accidental se — se me cayó

This is one of the most distinctive constructions in Spanish, and caer is the model verb for it. When something falls or breaks or escapes through no real fault of the person involved, Spanish uses the accidental se construction: se + indirect-object pronoun (me, te, le, nos, os, les) + verb in 3rd person. The grammatical subject is the thing that fell; the person it happened to is in the dative.

• Se me cayó el móvil. — I dropped my phone. (literally "the phone fell to me")
• Se te ha caído un botón. — You've lost a button.
• A Marta se le cayeron las llaves al alcantarillado. — Marta dropped her keys down the drain.

The verb agrees with the thing that fell (singular or plural), not with the person to whom it happened. This is the opposite of how English speakers expect to organize the sentence.

Caer bien / mal a alguien — the indispensable idiom

Caer bien / caer mal (a alguien) is the standard Spanish way to say to like / dislike a person in the sense of "to find them likeable". It has the same backwards-feeling structure as gustar: the person being judged is the subject, the person doing the judging is the indirect object.

• Me cae bien tu hermano. — I like your brother. (i.e., he comes across well to me)
• No me cae bien tu jefe. — I don't really like your boss.
• A mi madre le caes muy bien. — My mother likes you a lot.

This is not the same as gustar a alguien, which for people takes on romantic / attraction overtones in Spanish (me gusta tu hermano often implies attraction). For platonic likability, caer bien / mal is the safe choice.

High-frequency collocations from peninsular Spanish

The classic English-speaker error

English fall is intransitive but does not normally require any reflexive marker: the boy fell, the leaves fell, prices fell. In Spanish, when a person falls, the reflexive caerse is almost obligatory in everyday speech. Saying caí en la calle of yourself sounds odd — Spaniards say me caí en la calle. The plain caer without reflexive is reserved for non-human or non-volitional subjects (rain, leaves, a government, a date, prices) or for somewhat literary register.

The second error is mapping English I dropped X onto Spanish caí X or dejé caer X. Spanish prefers the accidental se construction: se me cayó X. This is not a stylistic choice — it is the default. Dejar caer exists but means to drop on purpose or to drop a hint, not to accidentally drop.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Caer combines three predictable irregularities: yo-go caigo, intervocalic y in cayó / cayeron / cayendo, and a written accent on caído.
• For a person falling, peninsular Spanish defaults to caerse: me caí, se cayó.
• The accidental se construction (se me cayó, se te cayó) is the standard way to say I dropped, you dropped. Verb agrees with the thing that fell, not the person.
• Caer bien / mal a alguien is the everyday way to express platonic likability — gustar applied to people often implies attraction.
• The participle caído always carries a written accent; without it, the spelling is wrong.
• High-frequency idioms (caer en la cuenta, caer en lunes, cae por su propio peso, se me cae la cara de vergüenza) repay early memorization.