You may remember a recent blog post where I talked about how Spanish uses the “se” construction with certain verbs to express “unplanned,” “unexpected,” or “accidental” events. And I listed some of those verbs:
1. caérsele – to drop
2. ocurrírsele – to dawn on
3. rompérsele – to break
4. olvidársele – to forget
5. perdérsele – to lose
6. quedársele – to leave something behind
7. quemársele – to burn
Many people wanted to know why didn’t I use the word “olvidé” instead of “olvidó” in the phrase
“Se me olvidó tu nombre” when trying to tell someone “I forgot your name.”
Well, a better translation would be “your name was forgotten and the fact that it was forgotten has affected ‘me'”
¿Cómo? (What?)
Spanish can get confusing if you always try to translate everything literally.
But keep in mind that with the “se” construction the verb focuses on the object affected and not the
person who was involved or affected.
Por ejemplo (for example) . . .
If “Se me olvidó tu nombre” means “I forgot your name (unintentionally),” if you are speaking to a group of people and you wanted to say “I forgot your names,” then you’d say:
“Se me olvidaron sus nombres”
Here are some more examples:
Se me cayeron los tenedores
(I dropped the forks by mistake)Se le rompieron las botellas.
(He broke the bottles by accident)Se me perdieron las tarjetas
(I accidentally lost the cards)Se le quedaron las llaves
(She mistakenly left the keys behind)
