SE for Unplanned Occurences

“Se” is one of those words that has a number of uses. The first thing that usually comes to mind when students see “se” is reflexive. But you’ve already learned two other uses of it. Do you remember what they are? IMPERSONAL “SE” Se habla español. Se come bien en Carrabbas. INDIRECT OBJECT “SE” Juan LE da el libro. > Juan LE lo da. > Juan SE lo da.

So here comes another use of “se”—yay! What’s happened with this girl? Se le cayó la caja. She dropped the box.

She didn’t drop it on purpose, right? So we don’t say that she dropped it. We say that it fell on her. Not on top of her: you know how we say things like “I broke the news to her as gently as I could, but she still cried on me.” What we mean is that she cried and I was affected by it. That’s what you have with “The box fell on her./She dropped the box”: Se le cayó la caja. The box got fallen on her. (fell) Good English: She dropped the box.

Se le cayó la caja. The box got fallen on her. She dropped the box. So how do you think you’d say, “I dropped the box”? Se me cayó la caja. Literally, “the box fell on me.” “Box” is the subject; the person affected is the object.

Se me cayó la caja. I dropped the box. Se te cayó la caja.You dropped the box. Se le cayó la caja.He dropped the box. Se nos cayó la caja.We dropped the box. Se os cayó la caja.Y’all dropped the box. Se les cayó la caja.They dropped the box. Note that it’s the indirect object pronoun that’s used to show the person affected.

Now, how do you say, “I dropped the boxes”? Think about it before you click. Se me cayeron las cajas. What you’re saying is, literally, “The boxes fell on me.”

So how do you say... You dropped the box. Se te cayó la caja. You dropped the boxes. Se te cayeron las cajas. He dropped the box. Se le cayó la caja. He dropped the boxes. Se le cayeron las cajas. We dropped the box. Se nos cayó la caja. We dropped the boxes. Se nos cayeron las cajas. Y’all dropped the box. Se os cayó la caja. Y’all dropped the boxes. Se os cayeron las cajas. They dropped the box. Se les cayó la caja. They dropped the boxes.Se les cayeron las cajas.

Dropping something isn’t the only thing you can do accidentally. You can also lose something... Se me perdió el dinero.... or break something... Se me rompió el espejo.... or forget something... Se me olvidó el dinero.... or run out of something... Se me acabó la leche.

Se me perdió el dinero. Se me rompió el espejo. Se me olvidó el dinero. Se me acabó la leche. All of the above verbs work just like “caer”: You lost the money. – Se te perdió el dinero. You lost the keys. – Se te perdieron las llaves. He broke the window. – Se le rompió la ventana. He broke the windows. – Se le rompieron las ventanas. We forgot the date. – Se nos olvidó la fecha. We forgot the dates. – Se nos olvidaron las fechas. Y’all ran out of milk. – Se os acabó la leche. Y’all ran out of cookies. –Se os acabaron las galletas.

Note: You notice that I said “got fallen” for “se cayó.” There’s a good reason for that. It doesn’t make sense with “caer,” but it does with some of the others: Se me perdió el dinero. – The money got lost on me. Se me rompió la ventana. – The window got broken on me. Why do I insist on using “the window got broken on me” rather than just “the window broke on me” as a literal translation? Consider: I got angry. – Me enojé. You got tired. – Te cansaste. We got bored. – Nos aburrimos. The way you say to get bored, tired, sick, etc., is to make the verb reflexive. So if “se enojó” means “he got angry,” it kind of makes sense for “se rompió” to mean “it got broken.” You probably won’t find a book and maybe not another teacher who looks at it that way, but that’s how I got it to make sense to me.

By the way, if there’s not a verb for “I got... whatever,” you use “ponerse”: I got sad. – Me puse triste. Something to think about: how would you say, “I got through at 3:00”?

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