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I was teaching a high school Spanish class, and a student (who was raised in Texas, but has Mexican relatives) told me that he has heard "veni" instead of "viene". I'd like to know if this is something that is used in Mexico or Texas, or maybe something that he has misunderstood. My only thought is that he has heard, "Ven ahí" and morphed it into one word. There is also "Venid" without hearing the "d" but that would be uncommon around Texas. Also, please don't focus on "viene" being in the present tense and other forms being commands (or any other forms you may suggest). This student wasn't saying it was exactly the same, and wasn't focused on the tense being used, just that he'd heard a different word.

Please help me stay a step ahead of this student on this. Thanks!

aparente001
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Rachel
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    Vení (with an accent on the i) is the imperative vos form of venir in places where voseo occurs, but as I understand it voseo is almost nonexistent in Mexico. – jrdioko Mar 22 '12 at 22:21
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    Maybe he heard "ven y" (and understood "veni") as in a sentence like "ven y prueba esto". – Javi Mar 23 '12 at 07:59
  • Looks italian to me ............... –  Dec 15 '15 at 22:25
  • Rachel, you need to bone up on the use of vos instead of tú (voseo) and the changes used when using verb forms with it. This is common in the Cono Sur but also in Colombia. You might want to see La Reina del Flow on Netflix. Most of their second person verb usage is with vos. And yes, this is the imperative. – Lambie Dec 11 '21 at 17:02
  • I suggest everyone here read this: https://www.happyhourspanish.com/spanish-agentina-voseo/ – Lambie Dec 11 '21 at 17:10

12 Answers12

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"Veni" isn't a word in standard Spanish. However, vení (with an accent on the i) is the affirmative imperative vos form of venir in places where voseo occurs. But according to the Wikipedia article on voseo, vos is "only used [in Mexico] in some small parts of Chiapas and Tabasco, being completely unused in the rest of the country." However, voseo is standard in Argentina and Uruguay.

If the student is from Texas and Mexico, as others have said it's probably more likely that he heard something like ven y ver (as part of a longer sentence) and thought he was hearing the word "veni."

jrdioko
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    "ven y ver" is not correct. You should conjugate the second verb (it can't be in infinitive). So it can be in imperative: "ven y ve (esto)" (though it sounds a bit unnatural) or in future: "ven y verás". – Javi Mar 23 '12 at 22:00
  • Ah, good point. Although I checked Google and "ven y ver" has 19.8 million results, "ven y ve" has 217 thousand, and "ven y verás" has 1.7 million. – jrdioko Mar 23 '12 at 23:06
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    If you join a conjugated verb with an infinitive verb is like if you say in English: "come and to see" or "come and seeing". It doesn't make sense. Maybe that fragment can be part of a sentence where "ven" is used inside a subordinate clause where the main clause has the verb in infinitive form. For example in a to-do List: "Seguir las instrucciones que ven y ver si se consigue el resultado". But a sentence like "ven y ver" is senseless. – Javi Mar 23 '12 at 23:31
  • @Javi Just because it's prescriptively incorrect doesn't meant it doesn't happen. The numbers I got out of Google were similar to the ones jrdioko got. For my part, I work with people, born in Mexico, who speak and write like this all the time. This makes me more than a little bit depressed, but one needs to be aware of it. Sometimes it helps to think of it as one big hermeneutical exercise, deciphering the incoherent nonsense I receive in my inbox and over the phone. – Michael Wolf Mar 27 '12 at 15:51
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    Maybe I don't hear it correctly, but I hear this all the time in Argentina. +vos is used instead of tu there. –  Mar 29 '12 at 02:08
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    This is also correct in Nicaragua …… "veni ve", "come see "…… – Necronet May 18 '12 at 21:39
  • I dare say for sure he heard it from someone from Argentina, or maybe Nicaragua :) – Sergio Romero Jan 10 '13 at 22:38
  • Of the millions of results thrown by googling "ven y ver", I doubt that even one of them shows the phrase as a meaningfung copulative clause. –  Jun 08 '13 at 08:41
  • This is completely wrong. Vení is completely standard in places where they use voceo. Forget Mexico. that is not one. This form, vení, is used extensively in the Cono Sur, Colombia and Central America. I am not even a native speaker of Spanish, yet, I know all this. How can that be? Don't you as Spanish speakers pick up on other usages?? I speak AmE, but I listen to Australian, Uk, New Zealand English. Open your minds a little bit.... – Lambie Dec 11 '21 at 17:06
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I'm from Mexico myself, and I've never heard veni (And I've been in Northern and Central Mexico and Texas), so I'd say that student maybe got confused as you mention with something like Ven ahi or even vine said the wrong way.

DarkAjax
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Vení is also used in Nicaragua extensively, especially in the imperative form. They like to put the accent on the second syllable so it sounds like this, with approximate translations:

Esperáme! (Wait for me!) Paráte! (Stop it!) Dejálo! (Leave him/it!) Veníte! (Come here)

I've heard this numerous times in both rural and urban areas. You can hear and see voseo being used everywhere, especially in advertisements. Nicaraguans swallow their S's however, so vos sounds more like vo. Vos so loca = Vo so loca :)

user1232
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  • I support your answer..In Nicaragua we use a lot "veni" in the context you explained. We use "vos" instead of "tu" :) – cayerdis Jan 11 '13 at 06:02
  • La forma imperativa es usada no solo en Nicaragua, sino desde Guatemala hasta Costa Rica, también en Colombia y Argentina. No tengo experiencia en otros países del área, pero si hablan de vos seguramente también ocurre. – jachguate Jan 24 '13 at 05:38
  • We use the "vos" form a lot in El Salvador as well like you describe here. Some more examples: ¡Calláte! (Be quiet!), tenés (vos form of "to have"), decís (vos form of "to speak/say"). And for your example in the last sentence, @user1232, the first part should read "Vos sos loca" instead of "Vos so loca". – gnarlybracket Sep 04 '15 at 01:09
  • At OP and @gnarlybracket, note that in the 2010 Orthography, accents aren't used anymore on words like esperame, parate, dejalo, venite, callate. The accent returns if there's two pronouns, though: dejámelo – user0721090601 Dec 16 '15 at 03:44
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As far as I know, vení (or other imperative forms like that) are not used in Mexico, but are used in some countries in South America (Argentina and Uruguay, for example):

  • ¡Vos, vení!

In Mexico, the equivalent expresion is ven or venga:

  • ¡Tú, ven!
  • ¡Usted, venga! This is correct!
Barranka
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Maybe he's misunderstanding Spanish and Latin.

In latin Veni means go to (ir a in Spanish).

Maybe he has heard this famous latin quote:

Veni, vidi, vici

Ima
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Here in Colombia "vení" is the normal conjugation of the verb venir in the imperative form. It is not used all around the country, only in regions where voseo is normal, areas such as:

  • Antioquia
  • Viejo Caldas
  • Norte of Valle del Cauca.
clinch
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Henry
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As they said above, "vení" is a word that virtually nobody use in Mexico.

In Argentina, we use it a lot. As the first answer said, it's the imperative form of "venir" but it's just use in countries in which the word "vos" (instead of "tu") is frequently used.

In Argentina, you say, for example "¡vení a ver eso!". It means "come to see that!".

In other countries, you probably say "ven a ver eso".

alezvic
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veni, veni in Colombia: come on, come on. If you watch the Colombian telenovela La Reyna del Flow on Netflix, you will here veni all the time, along with vos.

Sabine Teaver
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Vení is only used by spanish speakers who speak with the vosotros. People typically from Nicaragua, Argentina, and Uruguay speak with that. Therefore, the word vení simply means the same thing as "come" or if we say venite means "come here". It's the same as if other people say "ven aquí" or just "ven".

Gaby
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    vos is not the same as vosotros. Sorry but that is simply wrong. The current accepted answer pretty much got it right. It's also worth noting that voseo is not only wide-spread in the countries you mentioned. – clinch Jan 03 '15 at 16:45
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"Vení" means "come".

It is the same as "venid" but that word is only used in Spain, for example if you want to say "come here" in South America we say "Vení para acá".

Note: I am from Uruguay.

fedorqui
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Rodrigo
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Vení, meas "come" in imperative, that is used in many of pleces in central and south america, for example I'm from Venezuela, Maracaibo, and if you come here some day, you'll hear to the people saing: Vení, because the peple here use "vos" and not "tú". Well, we use "tú", but is more frequent say "vos" note: I'm learning english, sorry for the mistake.

Adrián
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Al leat in Spain "veni" is only used when quoting at Julius Caesar, as noted by imanol, but "vení" probably might be understand like "venid". So "¡vos, vení!!" ~ "¡vosotros, venid!" ergo mean "¡tú,ven!". "Vos" is never used in modern spanish in Spain, but this is nothing compared to decrypt the modern andalusian "venacapacá" that mean "ven acá para acá" ("come here, right here").

Fran
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