Breakdown of Me pone nervioso llegar con retraso a una entrevista.
Questions & Answers about Me pone nervioso llegar con retraso a una entrevista.
Why does the sentence start with me?
Me is an indirect object pronoun meaning to me.
The structure is algo me pone + adjective, literally something puts me nervous = something makes me nervous.
So:
Why is pone in the third person singular?
Because the subject of pone is the whole infinitive phrase:
llegar con retraso a una entrevista
That entire action is treated as one thing, so Spanish uses third person singular:
- Me pone nervioso llegar... = Arriving... makes me nervous
- Compare: Me gusta leer = Reading pleases me / I like reading
Why is it llegar and not llego or llegando?
Spanish often uses the infinitive to talk about an action in a general way, like English arriving, being late, speaking in public, etc.
So:
- llegar con retraso = to arrive late / arriving late
It is not llego because that would mean I arrive as a fully conjugated verb, and it is not acting as the subject in the same way.
It is not llegando because the gerund in Spanish is used much less freely than English -ing forms. In this sentence, the natural form is the infinitive.
Why is it nervioso and not nerviosa?
The adjective agrees with the person who feels nervous, not with the action.
Here, nervioso describes the speaker, represented by me.
So:
- a male speaker would usually say Me pone nervioso...
- a female speaker would usually say Me pone nerviosa...
The adjective does not agree with entrevista or with llegar.
What exactly does poner nervioso mean?
Why is there no word for it in It makes me nervous?
Why does Spanish use con retraso here? Can you also say tarde?
Yes, both can be possible, but they are not always identical in tone.
- llegar con retraso = to arrive with a delay / to arrive late
- llegar tarde = to arrive late
In this sentence, con retraso sounds slightly more formal or neutral, which fits well with a una entrevista.
Llegar tarde a una entrevista is also very natural and probably even more common in everyday speech.
What is the role of a in a una entrevista?
Here a means to:
It is the preposition used with llegar to indicate the destination or event you are arriving at.
Why is it una entrevista and not just entrevista?
Can the word order be changed?
Is this sentence about a specific interview or interviews in general?
Usually it sounds general: the speaker is saying that being late for a job interview is something that makes them nervous.
Because it uses the infinitive llegar and una entrevista, it expresses a general situation rather than one specific event.
If the speaker meant a specific interview, context would usually make that clear.
Could I say Estoy nervioso de llegar con retraso a una entrevista instead?
Not with the same meaning.
- Me pone nervioso llegar con retraso... = The idea/situation of arriving late makes me nervous
- Estoy nervioso... = I am nervous
So me pone nervioso focuses on the cause of the feeling.
Estoy nervioso describes your current state.
A more natural alternative with estar would be something like:
That means you are nervous because you are going to be late, not that lateness in general makes you nervous.
Is this a common Spanish structure I should learn?
Yes, very much. This pattern is extremely useful:
[indirect object pronoun] + poner + adjective + infinitive/clause
Examples:
Me pone triste escuchar esa canción.
That song makes me sad / լսening to that song makes me sad.Nos pone contentos veros aquí.
Seeing you here makes us happy.Le pone de mal humor esperar tanto.
Waiting so long puts him/her in a bad mood.
It is a very natural way to talk about what causes feelings.
Sign up free — start using our AI language tutor
Start learning SpanishMaster Spanish — from Me pone nervioso llegar con retraso a una entrevista to fluency
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓Infinitely deep — unlimited vocabulary and grammar
- ✓Fast-paced — build complex sentences from the start
- ✓Unforgettable — efficient spaced repetition system
- ✓ AI tutor to answer your grammar questions