What does quedar mean in Spanish? And what does quedarse mean in Spanish?

Discover what’s the difference between quedar and quedarse in Spanish. Do you have doubts about when to use each one of them? In today’s lesson, I’ll explain what both verbs mean, and when to use them in your Spanish conversations. I will give you plenty of (useful) examples of how to talk about quedar in Spanish. By the way, if you’re short on time, you can watch the video at the end of this article or straight on YouTube.

Quedar vs. Quedarse in Spanish

Quedar vs quedarse is considered a nightmarish couple among Spanish speakers. Another similar couple would be llegar vs. llevar. The long story short is that quedar is an intransitive verb, which is often translated as “to be left,” and quedarse is a pronominal verb, which is often translated as “to stay.” As you can see, they mean slightly different things in English. But overall, the verbs’ meaning is also very much dependent on how we use them. I’ll give you more examples below.

What does quedar mean in Spanish?

Quedar, pronounced keh-DAHR, has a few meanings in Spanish:

• To remain: Solo queda la fachada de la casa. (Just the front of the house remains.)
• To be left (as in to remain): ¿Quedan asientos para nosotros? (Are there any seats left for us?) No queda leche. (There isn’t any milk left.)
• Or to be left over: Quedó bastante pollo para alimentar a los perros. (There was enough chicken left over to feed to the dogs.)
• To be located (in this case, quedar is similar to the verb estar): El restaurante queda a tres calles de aquí. (The restaurant is three streets away from here.)

Quedar meaning:

• To finish a competition (sports related): Quedamos terceros. Por lo menos nos llevamos una medalla. (We finished third. At least we got a medal.)
• When talking about a size that fits (fit clothing, hairstyle), to suit: La talla S aún me queda. (A small size still fits me.) Estos pantalones me quedan bien. (These pants fit me.)
• To meet or to arrange a meeting: ¿Dónde quedamos? (Where shall we meet?)
• To stay and wait for someone, to wait: No me pidas que quede si no vas a volver. (Don’t ask me to stay if you are not coming back.)

If you only remember one meaning of quedar, make it “to be left” (think about the verb hay in Spanish). It’s the most common use of this verb. Now let’s see what quedarse means in Spanish.

How to use quedarse in Spanish?

I said in the beginning that quedarse, pronounced keh-DAHR-seh, means “to stay.” As in to remain in a place. But quedar can also mean “to stay”, so what’s the difference between quedar vs quedarse?

When we talk about quedar as “to remain” or “to stay,” we talk about something as being (or not) available (No queda comida.) Think again about the verb hay or “to be left over.” Whereas quedarse as “to stay” is about remaining in a place, staying put in a place. Check out the examples with quedarse:

• To stay, to remain in a place: Nuestros primos se quedaron con nosotros durante la Navidad. (Our cousins stayed with us over Christmas.) Ella se quedó en casa en lugar de ir a la clase. (She stayed at home instead of going to class.)
• To keep something, to retain: No te puedes quedar con lo que no es tuyo. (You can’t keep what is not yours.)
• To remember, to recall something: No se me queda la lección después de haberla aprendido. (I can’t remember the lesson after I learned it.)
• To become something (here quedarse is used with adjectives): Mi abuelo se quedó ciego cuando tenía 80 y pico años. (My granddad went blind when he was 80 something.)

For more examples, I recommend having a look over the SpanishDict quedar vs quedarse page here.

Remember to add the reflexive pronouns (me/te/se/nos/os/se) when using quedarse! Let’s take the indicative present form of quedarse as an example: yo me quedo, tú te quedas, él/ella/Ud se queda, nosotros nos quedamos, vosotros os quedáis, ellos/ellas/Uds se quedan.

If you want to learn more Spanish, boost your confidence as a speaker, or clarify a few things here and there, you can always book a free consultation with me.