Spanish · Chapter 35 · Lesson 15 · Grammar primer
Perception verbs + infinitive or gerund: la vi salir
Seeing and hearing someone do something: la vi salir (saw her leave, whole action) vs la vi saliendo (saw her leaving, mid-action), with ver/mirar and oir/escuchar, and the doer as a direct object.
The short version
La vi salir or la vi saliendo
A perception verb plus an infinitive reports the whole action, start to finish. Swap in a gerund and you freeze it mid-flow. La vi salir is 'I saw her leave'; la vi saliendo is 'I saw her leaving', caught on the way out. English reaches for the -ing form by default and Spanish does not: the infinitive is the neutral choice.
La vi salir.
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