Question 1

What does the prefix re- mean in reamigables? Is it slang?

Accepted Answer

The prefix re- is used to mean 'very', 'super', or 'extremely'. It makes the adjective an absolute superlative, expressing the highest degree of a quality. It is highly colloquial and informal. You will hear it used constantly in everyday spoken Spanish in many parts of Latin America, but you should avoid using it in formal writing.

Question 2

Why is it written as one word (reamigables) instead of two?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, intensive prefixes like re- and súper- are attached directly to the front of the adjective or adverb they modify. You do not use a space or a hyphen, which is why it forms the single, continuous word reamigables.

Question 3

Does the re- part ever change to match masculine, feminine, or plural nouns?

Accepted Answer

No, the prefix itself never changes. However, the adjective it is attached to still has to agree with the subject in gender and number. Here, amigables ends in -s because it describes the plural ellos. If you were talking about a single friend, he or she would just be reamigable.

Question 4

Why do we use me encanta instead of yo encanto to say 'I love'?

Accepted Answer

The verb encantar (to love / to be very pleasing) works exactly like gustar. The grammatical subject of the sentence isn't 'I', but rather the action itself: hablar con ellos (talking to them). Because the subject is an infinitive verb (hablar), we use the singular form of the verb (encanta). Literally, it translates to 'talking to them is very pleasing to me (me)'.

Ellos son reamigables y me encanta hablar con ellos.

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