Learn Spanish (Latin America): Queremos que el cirujano se vaya por una hora. - We want the surgeon to leave for an hour.

Queremos que el cirujano se vaya por una hora.

We want the surgeon to leave for an hour.

Breakdown of Queremos que el cirujano se vaya por una hora.

Questions & Answers about Queremos que el cirujano se vaya por una hora.

Why use se vaya instead of just vaya?

The verb ir simply means "to go" (usually to a specific destination). Adding the pronoun to make it irse changes the meaning to "to leave" or "to go away". Since the sentence is about the surgeon leaving rather than going to a specific place, we use the pronominal form irse.

Why is the verb vaya instead of va?

The phrase queremos que (we want that...) expresses a desire about what someone else does. This triggers the subjunctive mood for the second verb. Therefore, the standard present tense se va changes to the subjunctive se vaya.

vaya looks very different from ir. Where does this form come from?

The verb ir (and by extension irse) is completely irregular in the present subjunctive. Instead of following standard vowel-swapping rules, its forms are vaya, vayas, vaya, vayamos, and vayan.

Why is it por una hora instead of para una hora?

In Spanish, we use por to talk about the duration or length of time an action lasts. The word para is used for time when talking about deadlines (like "due by tomorrow"). Since "an hour" is the amount of time the surgeon will be gone, por is the correct choice.