Is this sentence passive or impersonal?

Question

Is this sentence passive or impersonal?..."se hable español"..... The lesson I am reading says that the sentence is impersonal...... But according to the rules, that I just read; in order for the sentence to be impersonal, an unidentified person, speaking in the in the 3rd person singular, has to be using an intransitive verb.... To me, "hable" seems transitive because it is showing action toward a noun, "español". Therefore I think the sentence is passive.

"Español" is the subject, root1, not the object. - lazarus1907, Oct 29, 2010

It is clearly passive, not impersonal. - lazarus1907, Oct 29, 2010

Answer 1

That depends on how the phrase fits within the rest of the sentence. If it says, for example: "aquí se hable español", it is plain incorrect. It should read: "Aquí se habla español", in which case it is passive.

On the other hand, if it says something like: "queremos que en esta hora sólo se hable español"; then it's present subjunctive.

Answer 2

Él / ella habla español.............He / she speaks Spanish (active voice)

Se habla español........Spanish is spoken (passive voice)

Passive voice makes the sentence impersonal - 005faa61, Sep 25, 2010

Thank you! - root1, Sep 25, 2010