Spanish word of the week: importar

importar VERB to mind; to matter

importar is a very useful word to describe how people feel about something.

No me importa tener que levantarme temprano. I don’t mind having to get up early.

Apart from being used with the infinitive, as in the previous example, you also use it with que and then the subjunctive:

No le importa que su hijo no trabaje. He doesn’t mind his son’s not working.

importar is very often used with either of these structures when you want to make a polite request:

¿Le importa cerrar la ventanilla? Would you mind closing the window?

¿Te importa que abra la ventanilla? Do you mind if I open the window?

You can also use importar to talk about how much something matters, especially in the phrase No importa It doesn’t matter:

“Llegaremos un poco tarde” – “No importa” “We’ll be a bit late” – “It doesn’t matter”

¿Qué importa que no seamos ricos? What does it matter that we’re not rich?