¿Puedes traer mi diccionario, por favor?

Can you bring my dictionary, please?

Breakdown of ¿Puedes traer mi diccionario, por favor?

• mi: my
• traer: to bring
• ¿puedes: can you
• por favor: please
• el diccionario: the dictionary

Questions & Answers about ¿Puedes traer mi diccionario, por favor?

Why do we say ¿Puedes traer instead of ¿Puede traer or ¿Podrías traer?

¿Puedes traer uses the tú form (informal singular), which is typical among friends or family. ¿Puede traer is the usted form (formal singular), used if you want to be more polite or speak to someone you don’t know well. ¿Podrías traer is a more polite or conditional form of “could you,” often used to soften the request (like “could you please bring...?”).

What is the difference between traer and llevar in Spanish?

Both mean to bring or to carry, but traer often implies bringing something toward the speaker’s location, while llevar implies taking something away from the speaker’s location. In the sentence ¿Puedes traer mi diccionario, por favor?, you're asking the other person to bring the dictionary to where you currently are.

Is it common to add por favor at the end like this?

Yes, it’s very common and polite to add por favor at the beginning or end of a request in Spanish. For example, ¿Por favor, puedes traer mi diccionario? is just as polite as ¿Puedes traer mi diccionario, por favor?.

Why is mi used instead of mi with an accent (like mí)?

In Spanish, mi without an accent translates to my, while mí with an accent is typically a pronoun meaning me (used after prepositions). Here, mi is the possessive adjective my, indicating that it’s your dictionary.

If I wanted to be more polite, could I say ¿Me podrías traer mi diccionario, por favor??

Yes, that phrasing is perfectly correct and sounds a bit more polite because podrías is the conditional form. Spanish speakers sometimes use this to sound more courteous: ¿Me podrías traer...? translates closely to Could you bring me...?.