Llevar As “To Carry”

The most common definition of llevar is “to carry” as in “carry an object from here to somewhere else.”  For example, say you need to drop a package off at John’s house.  You would say:

Tengo que llevar el paquete a la casa de John -> I have to take the package to John’s house.

Llevar As “To Wear”

Llevar is also commonly used to express the notion of “to wear,” which can be applied to clothes or hair.

Llevo el pelo largo ->  I have (wear) long hair

Llevo gafas negras ->  I’m wearing black sunglasses

LLevar To Express Time

Llevar can also be used to express time.  For example,

Llevo dos años aquí en Barcelona ->  I’ve lived here in Barcelona for 2 years

Similarly, you can use llevar with yourself (me) as the indirect object to express how long it took you to accomplish something.  In this case, llevarme will translate roughly as “it took me”

Me llevó más que cuatro horas preparar para la entrevista -> It took me more than four hours to prepare for the interview

Llevar To express Similarity/Dissimilarity

Llevar can also be used idiomatically to compare two different nouns.

España no lleva mucho a Argentina ->  Spain and Argentina don’t have much in common (not true, but bear with me)

Traer means “to bring, to carry with you”

Examples:
Traje la cerveza => I brought the beer (i.e. I’m already at the party and brought beer with me)
Me trae las llaves => He’s bringing me the keys.

Llevar means “to take out, to carry away”

Examples:
Llevo la cerveza => I’m bringing the beer (i.e. I’m still at home, but will arrive with the beer soon)
Te llevan las llaves => They’re taking his keys to him (i.e. they are here now, but will soon arrive with your keys)

They key distinction can be summed up as follows:

Use llevar if an object is being transported to a destination where you’re not.

Use traer if an object is being transported to a destination you are currently at.

Of course, both verbs have other usages that don’t overlap, particularly llevar. I’ll cover these usages in-depth in a future post.