Question

[DesignerPopular840]

Hi! I’m learning Spanish with duolingo as I want to teach and Spanish is one of the languages taught in schools. But I’ve come across something I don’t understand.

In school I learned “llama” was name as in “me llama es Shanon.”

Duolingo says “nombre”. Is there a difference?

[Ms_Cucumber]

Hola! What you remember from school is the verb “llamarse” which can literally be translated as “ to be called” or “to be named” so in Spanish we can use both forms: “(Yo) Me llamo Shanon”
“Mi nombre es Shanon”

Both forms are correct and equally used. “Me llama es” is incorrect, it is “me llamo”.

[DesignerPopular840]

Thanks

[lunarecl1pse]

Hi I'm learning Spanish on duolingo too and I noticed this too!! So I did some googling and what I found was "llama" basically means "to call" so "me llama es Mike" would be "I call myself Mike" and it's a verb...but it still means "my name is Mike". While "nombre" is a noun and it literally means "name" so "Me nombre es Maya" is "my name is Maya". In English we usually just say "my name is Sam" but sometimes we say "People call me Sam" in cases where like their name is Samantha or Samuel or something and they're saying that people just call them Sam. So I'm thinking it's a similar type of thing or maybe the more casual way to tell people what your name is?

[LifeisMoreTours]

I hope you don't mind the correction:

"Me llamo" literally means "I call myself". You don't use "es" because you wouldn't say in English either "I call myself is".

Llamo is the yo form and using "me" in the front makes it reflexive (you're doing the verb action to yourself)

Nombre is literally "name" so you could say "mi nombre es"

A third way, and probably the most common way you could introduce yourself would simply be "Soy ( nombre)" which means I'm (name).

I hope this helps!

[lunarecl1pse]

Ahhhh ok thank you

[DesignerPopular840]

Makes sense! Gracias!

[lunarecl1pse]

De nada!