How does giving birth speak of the moment when we bring a child into the world? It is something like giving life, giving a new light to a life. Well, it’s something like that or at least it’s something like how we explain it in our Spanish Perfecto school. And generally this revelation of meaning is followed by an explanatory complement on the verb to give (DAR). Here we share it.
The verb dar is one of the 20 most used verbs in Spanish. Perhaps because it is not only a verb used with its literal meaning and regular structure (to give something to someone) but also, with certain verbal complements, it acquires stable meanings that do not always respond to its basic meaning.
Let’s first check that meaning and regular structure: Give something to someone.
The verb to give (DAR) is a transitive verb. This type of verb is the one that requires direct or indirect complements, and in this case it requires both because we always give something to someone. We give good news or bad news to our colleagues, we give a gift to our husband, we give a flower to our mother, we give love to our children. So even when we refer to what has already been said, we require the use of double pronouns, in the order of the previous sentences: se la damos, se lo damos, se la damos, se lo damos.
However, the verb to give is also a typical maker of sentences that express various meanings, sometimes without a link with the meaning of its base, always using a complement that is not always direct or indirect. The verb with the complement is what we call collocations.
Collocations are combinations of recurrent and almost fixed words that we repeat together as an expression.There is no doubt that they are central to the learning of a foreign language. The degree of mastery of the same demonstrating the apprentice constitutes a good indication of their knowledge of the foreign language. The main obstacle that pose to learning, derives from the arbitrariness of this type of lexical combinations and, therefore, of its impraftness: for example, in Spanish we decided, in some contexts, to pay attention (prestar atención), but not * give attention (dar atención), even though that combination could be perfectly possible.
In a next article we will talk about collocations deeply and today let’s focus on expressions with the verb DAR.
The verb DAR (to give) has many meanings when it is used with some nouns, adverbs. So, we are talking about some specific combinations for these collocations.
DAR is used to express feelings when it is followed by these nouns, among others: fear, dread, panic, hunger, thirst, dream, grief, pity, disgust, laziness, laziness, vertigo, cut, shame, rage. Also it is used to give or offer “something” even if we are talking about intangible things, like “dar un abrazo”. Let’s check some of the most common expressions with DAR.
dar a conocer: to make known
dar gritos: to shout
dar a luz: to give birth
dar gusto: to please
dar un abrazo: to embrace, to hug
dar la hora: to strike the hour
dar asco: to disgust
dar gato por liebre: to deceit, to swindle, to gyp
dar las gracias: to thank
dar brincos: to jump
dar guerra: to cause a lot of trouble
dar los buenos días/tardes: to say good morning/afternoon
dar largas: to prolong an affair
dar calabazas: to jilt; to flunk
dar lata: to make a nuisance of oneself
dar la cara: to take responsibility
dar lugar a: to give cause for
dar carta blanca: to give someone a free hand
dar una mano: to lend a hand
dar con: to come upon; to find
dar lo mismo: to make no difference
dar con la puerta en las narices: to slam the door in one’s face
dar la nota: to stand out
dar cuenta de: to give a report on
dar pena a: to aggrieve
dar cuerda a: to wind
dar que hablar: to give grounds for criticism
dar de alta: to discharge (a patient)
dar que hacer: to cause trouble
dar(se) de baja: to drop or unsubscribe (from a list)
dar que pensar: to give grounds for suspicion
dar de beber / comer: to give a drink / to feed
dar palos de ciego: to swing out wildly
dar de palos: to beat; to thrash
dar parte: to inform
dar en el clavo / blanco: to hit the mark, to hit the nail on the head
dar un paseo: to take a walk
darse por aludido: to take it personally
dar a/por hecho: to take for granted
dar por muerto: to consider dead
dar por sentado: to take for granted
dar razón: to give account
dar la razón: to agree with
dar recuerdos a: to give regards to
dar rienda suelta a: to give free rein to
dar al traste con: to destroy; to spoil
dar voces: to shout
dar vueltas a: to think something over
dar una vuelta: to take a stroll
darse a: to devote oneself to
darse cuenta de: to realize
darse ínfulas: to put on airs
darse la mano: to shake hands
darse por + past participle: to consider oneself
darse por vencido: to give up
darse prisa: to hurry
dársela a uno: to make a fool out of someone
dárselas de: to pose as; to claim to be
You know, this phenomenon is not only typical of the verb to give nor only of Spanish, so as always we invite you not to resist learning verbal phrases or collocations without the referential and literal analysis of their parts. Be open to memorizing and using the phrase. Be open to learning the language without understanding its arbitrariness. Love it with its curiosities and mysteries. And do your best by learning.
See you!
