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Note that this is a Europe focused lesson. Your active focus is Latin America.
Learn how to express sudden actions in Spanish using ir y/coger y
In colloquial Spanish, to introduce something that the speaker finds unexpected or something that occurs very suddenly, we can use these structures:
ir + y / coger + y
This usually happens in a context with El Presente histórico/narrativo, i.e., using El Presente to tell anecdotes that refer to the past, but it can be used in other tenses too.
In this usage, the verbs ir and coger are interchangeable. They must be conjugated.
For example:
Y el idiota de Pedro va y le dice a Joaquín que yo estoy enamorada de él.And Pedro, the idiot, goes and tells Joaquín that I am in love with him.
Y el mecánico coge y me dice que son 200 euros, no 150.And the mechanic goes and tells me that it's 200 euros, not 150.
Después de echarle la bronca cogí y me fui.After giving him what for I upped and left [US: up and left].
Mi jefa ha cogido y me ha dicho que tengo que ser más agradable con los clientes.My boss went and told me that I had to be more friendly with the clients.
Notice how the verb that follows is conjugated in the same tense as ir/coger.
The "y" isn't always placed immediately after ir/coger; sometimes other elements of the sentence can be placed between them, for example:
Remember that when used this way, these verbs, ir and coger, don't have their literal meaning; i.e., nobody literally "goes" anywhere or "takes" anything.
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