Cuida tu salud mental.

Cuida tu salud mental.
Take care of your mental health.
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Questions & Answers about Cuida tu salud mental.

Why is cuida used here? What verb form is it?

Cuida is the affirmative tú command (imperative) of the verb cuidar. In Spanish, when you tell a friend or someone you address as tú to “take care of” something, you use the third-person singular form of the present indicative:

  • Present indicative (él/ella): cuida
  • Affirmative tú command: cuida
Why isn’t it cuides?

Cuides is the subjunctive form, which you use for:

  1. Negative tú commands (No cuides).
  2. Certain subordinate clauses (Espero que cuides…).
    Affirmative tú commands, however, mirror the él/ella present indicative, so you drop the s from cuidas and get cuida.
Why is tu written without an accent? Isn’t tú with an accent “you”?

Spanish distinguishes the possessive adjective tu (no accent) from the subject pronoun tú (with accent).

  • tu = your (possessive)
  • tú = you (subject)
    Here, tu salud mental means your mental health, so no accent is needed.
Why isn’t there an article before salud mental? For example, why not la salud mental?

When a noun is modified by a possessive adjective (mi, tu, su, etc.), Spanish generally omits the definite article.

  • Correct: Cuida tu salud mental.
  • Less common (and usually redundant): Cuida la tuya. (the tuya replaces the noun)

If you spoke in general terms without a possessive, you could say Cuida la salud mental to mean “Take care of mental health” in general.

Could I say cuida de tu salud mental instead? Why or why not?

With cuidar, Spanish typically treats salud as a direct object, so you don’t need de:

  • Preferred: Cuida tu salud mental.
  • Cuidar de is used when you “take care of” people or animals (Cuidar de los niños, cuidar de mi perro).
    Using de with salud would sound odd or overly formal.
How would I express the same idea in the formal (usted) form?

Switch to the usted command:

  • Take the present subjunctive (third person singular): cuide
  • Change the possessive to su (formal): Cuide su salud mental.
What about cuídate? Can I say cuídate tu salud mental?

Cuídate is the reflexive tú command meaning “take care of yourself.”

  • By itself, cuídate implies overall well-being (physical, mental, emotional).
  • If you specify tu salud mental, you can say Cuídate tu salud mental, but it’s more natural to pick one:
    • Cuida tu salud mental (focus on mental health)
    • Cuídate (focus on yourself in general)
Why is mental placed after salud, not before?

In Spanish, adjectives—especially descriptive ones like mental—usually follow the noun they modify:

  • salud mental (correct)
    Placing the adjective before the noun (mental salud) would be ungrammatical.
Why doesn’t mental change form for feminine salud?

Mental is an invariable adjective ending in -al, so it has the same form for masculine and feminine nouns:

  • la salud mental
  • el estado mental