Losing a game

Hola Claire J.

Here, the difference is about meaning, not grammar.

In Spanish, to say that you lost a game/competition, you use perder (not perderse):

Perderse means to miss something, usually because you didn’t attend, arrive in time, or weren’t present:

So both verbs are correct, but they describe different situations:

• perder + game/match = you played and lost

• perderse + event = you didn’t see or attend it

Your English examples map very neatly onto Spanish:

• “We lost the game” → Perdimos el partido

• “We missed the game” → Nos perdimos el partido

This is exactly why the lesson contrasts perder and perderse, they’re easy to confuse, but the distinction is very clear in Spanish.

Hasta pronto

Silvia