What is darse cuenta de in Spanish?

Darse cuenta de, pronounced dahr-seh kwehn-tah deh, is a Spanish verb phrase that translates as “to realize,” “to discover” or “to notice.” For example, ¿No te das cuenta de que estás malcriando a tus hijos? means “Don’t you realize you’re spoiling your children?” I’ll give you more examples below and explain as well what darse, cuenta and de mean. If you’re interested in learning (or improving your) Spanish, start with a free consultation. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy today’s lesson.

TIP: In Spanish, to realize something translates as darse cuenta (de) and not as realizar. As a matter of fact, the verb realizar means “to carry out,” “to perform,” “to materialize,” “to fulfill” or “to produce.” It’s about bringing something to fruition, not realizing something.

Darse cuenta de or darse cuenta que?

Which one is the correct version? While it may be faster to say darse cuenta que, the correct saying is in fact darse cuenta de que. To make it easier to understand, think about the fact that you notice/discover/realize something. In that case, you’ll say darse cuenta de algo, and the Spanish preposition de precedes the direct object (the something you discovered.) Let’s take a couple of examples:

• Me di cuenta de que no tenía las llaves cuando llegué a casa. – I discovered that I did not have the keys when I got home.
• Durante la conversación nos dimos cuenta de que éramos de la misma ciudad. – During the conversation we realized that we were from the same city.

De is a common preposition and can mean “from,” “of” or “in.” Don’t forget about it when you’re using darse cuenta de (algo.) As for cuenta… Cuenta is a feminine noun meaning “invoice,” “account” (as in finance,) “count” (think about the total of something), or “sum.”

What is darse in Spanish?

Darse is the reflexive form of the verb dar (“to give” in Spanish.) Dar is one of the most common verbs in Spanish, and you’ll find it in lots of expressions and sayings. If you want to speak Spanish like a native, you could easily use ¡Dale!, which means a variety of things: “hurry up,” “alright” or “come on.” Back to our expression. Since darse is a verb, you have to know how to conjugate it. Check out the full conjugation of darse, and how to use it in Spanish.

If we’re talking about a completed action, then we use the preterite form:

• yo me di cuenta de
• tú te diste cuenta de
• él/ella se dio cuenta de
• nosotros nos dimos cuenta de
• vosotros os disteis cuenta de
• ellos/ellas se dieron cuenta de

For the present form, we have:

• yo me doy cuenta de
• tú te das cuenta de
• él/ella se da cuenta de
• nosotros nos damos cuenta de
• vosotros os dais cuenta de
• ellos/ellas se dan cuenta de

¿Te diste cuenta de que puedes escuchar la lección?