La puerta no quiere abrirse.

to want

Breakdown of La puerta no quiere abrirse.

• la puerta: the door
• no: not
• abrirse: to open

Questions & Answers about La puerta no quiere abrirse.

Why is querer used with a door? A door cannot literally want anything.

In this sentence, querer is being used idiomatically, not literally. Spanish often uses querer + infinitive with things to express that something is being difficult or refuses to cooperate.

So La puerta no quiere abrirse means something like:

• The door won’t open
• The door doesn’t want to open

It is a kind of personification, just like in English when we say My car won’t start. The car has no real will, but the sentence suggests resistance.

Why is it abrirse and not just abrir?

Because abrirse here means to open in the sense of to become open, not to open something.

Compare:

• abrir = to open something
  
  • Abro la puerta = I open the door
• abrirse = to open / to come open
  
  • La puerta se abre = The door opens

In La puerta no quiere abrirse, the subject is la puerta, and the idea is that the door itself is not opening. That is why the pronominal form abrirse is used.

What does se mean here? Is it reflexive?