Irregular Verbs

Question 1

To be painful, hurt

Answer 1

DOLER

The Spanish verb doler means “to cause pain.” It is always conjugated in the third person singular or plural, depending on what is causing the pain, and the indirect object pronoun is always included. Doler is an intransitive verb that requires changes to the common subject, verb, object sentence structure.

Although similar in meaning, doler, an intransitive verb, can’t be used to translate the verb “to hurt” without changing the sentence structure. To express the meaning of the transitive verb to hurt someone or something, in Spanish you would need a different verb such as herir, lastimar, or hacer daño.

A different structure should be used in Spanish for the verb doler. Notice the pattern in these sentences:

Me duele el diente. (My tooth hurts. Literally, the tooth hurts me.)
Me duele amarte. (It hurts me to love you. Literally, to love you pains me.)
¿Te duele la cabeza? (Do you have a headache? Literally, is the head hurting you?)
A mi hijo le duele la garganta. (My son’s throat hurts. Literally, the throat is causing pain to my son.)