Ir vs. irse
How it works
Sometimes, when we take a verb and make it reflexive, the meaning completely changes. Something similar happens in English when we add certain prepositions to certain verbs: to look, for example, is different from to look after.
A very distinct case in Spanish would be the following:
ir - to go
irse - to leave
We use them with these prepositions:
ir a
irse de
In Spanish, we cannot leave a place, we have to leave "from" a place.
In the present tense:
Yo voy a la fiesta. I go to the party.
Yo me voy de la fiesta. I leave ("from") the party.
In the preterite tense:
Yo fui a una fiesta ayer a las cinco. I went to a party yesterday at five.
Yo me fui de la fiesta ayer a las ocho. I left ("from") the party yesterday at eight.
Conversación
Amanda: Irene, ¿a qué hora llegaste a tu trabajo ayer?
Irene: Llegué a mi trabajo a las nueve de la mañana.
A: ¿A qué hora te fuiste de tu trabajo?
I: Me fui de mi trabajo a las seis de la tarde.
Rereading feels productive but fades fast. What actually works is closing the page and trying to recall what you just learned. The effort of reconstructing knowledge from memory is what makes it stick.