ELONIO
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Por favor, dejen de susurrar; no podemos concentrarnos.

Por favor, dejen de susurrar; no podemos concentrarnos.
Please, stop whispering; we cannot concentrate.
From Lesson 206:Interruption (dejar de)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Por favor, dejen de susurrar; no podemos concentrarnos.

Why is it dejen de susurrar and not just dejen susurrar?
The phrase dejar de followed by an infinitive is a set structure meaning to stop doing something. If you drop the de, the verb dejar changes meaning to let or to allow, so dejen susurrar would actually mean allow whispering instead of stop whispering.
Why is the verb spelled dejen instead of dejan?
Because this is a command directed at multiple people (ustedes). To tell a group to do something, you swap the typical -an ending of an -ar verb for -en. If it were a factual statement rather than a command, you would use dejan.
Could I use parar instead of dejar de to mean stop in this sentence?
Yes, but you still need the preposition de, so you would say paren de susurrar. Both parar de and dejar de mean to stop doing an action, but dejar de is much more common in everyday Spanish for interrupting an ongoing activity like this.
Why is nos attached to the end of concentrar in concentrarnos?
The verb concentrarse is reflexive here. When an infinitive follows a conjugated verb like podemos, you have two choices for the pronoun: attach it directly to the end of the infinitive (no podemos concentrarnos) or place it before the conjugated verb (no nos podemos concentrar). Both are perfectly correct.

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