Learn Spanish (Latin America): No se acerquen a la vitrina. - Do not get close to the display case.

No se acerquen a la vitrina.

Do not get close to the display case.

Breakdown of No se acerquen a la vitrina.

Questions & Answers about No se acerquen a la vitrina.

Why does this sentence use acerquen instead of acercan?

Acerquen is the command (imperative) form for ustedes (you all). To give negative commands to a group, Spanish swaps the usual vowel endings. Since the root verb is acercarse (an -ar verb), the ending changes from -an to -en.

Where does the qu in acerquen come from?

The base verb is acercar. If we just swapped the a to an e for the command, we would spell it acercen. However, in Spanish, a c followed by an e makes an s sound. To keep the hard k sound of the original verb, the c changes to qu.

Why is se placed before the verb?

In negative commands (telling someone not to do something), pronouns like se must go directly between the no and the verb. If this were a positive command (telling someone to do it), the pronoun would be attached to the end of the verb instead, making it acérquense.

Why do we need the pronoun se at all?