Can someone explain “Se” to me in Spanish What is se?

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Can someone explain “Se” to me in Spanish
What is se?

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I’m not a native Spanish speaker, but se is a reflexive pronoun. When it’s in a sentence like that, it indicates that the verb is happening to the noun instead of the noun doing the verb.

So… “the tables are covered” instead of “the tables covered.”

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“Se” and its variants has a million (maybe not but at least half a dozen) uses in Spanish. I understand it just fine, but have to review a bit first if I want to really focus on actively using one of those uses. My favorite reference for this is ftornay’s post a few years back, which I have saved on my home computer and not with me, but I don’t want you to have to wait any longer. In the meantime, I hope he doesn’t sue me for plagiarism and any mistakes here are mine, not his. SE is a personal pronoun used for people, things or animals without naming them. It has no number or gender agreement, so you can use it for men or women—singles of multiples.

  1. The Reflexive Verb Se This might be the most common, the easiest, and what tanyafarrell mentioned (though the example she gave was another use)

This is where the verb casarse, banarse, enamorarse has se as part of it inherely and the doer of the action is also the recipient of it. Se lavó los pies (He washed his feet) – He washed his feet himself Se enamoró de ella (He fell in love with her)- He fell in love with her himself. You see this all the time watching telenovelas.

  1. Reciprocal Se This is when the doers do an action at the same time (usually to each other). Nos conocemos? Have we met before? Si, nos conocemos Ustedes se conocieron? Have you all met? Se quieren mucho y se casaron They love each other a lot and they go married.

  2. Se (les/le) Lo/la/los/las is the direct object pronouns in Spanish, le/les are the indirect object pronouns. Lo dije – I told him Le tenemos que mandar un mensaje. We have to send him a message. If we wanted to say “We have to send it to him” you couldn’t say “Le lo tenemos que mandar.” Instead you have to say, “Se lo tenemos que mandar.” It’s just a rule.

  3. Impersonal Se in Spanish These don’t reference a specific person. Used to make general statements or questions about how things are done, for example, according to custom. Think of it as “one……” Se come bien en la casa de mi padre “One eats well at my father’s house.” Se puede nadar aqui? –Can one swim here?

  4. Passive Se In my office we have a sign that’s says Se habla español literally Spanish is Spoke (here) it doesn’t matter who is speaking it. Just now that we got Spanish speakers around. You also see things like “Se buscan empleados” (Help Wanted) Literally employees generally are sought Se cubren las mesas – The tables are covered (this was the Tanya example).

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