Passive Voz
hello everyone! lesson 3.12 present the next example to show that something accidentlly happened:
- Dejé caer el florero
- Se me cayó el florero
caer - To fall Dejar caer - To drop
I didn't understand why you need to make the second sentence passive when the meaning of the word is already passive, it makes the meaning of "the vase was fell" instead of "the vase fell" or "the vase was dropped". you could just say:
El florero cayó (the vase FELL), isn't it? Or. if you do want to make it passive you need to use the "dejar caer", like: Se dejé caer el florero (te vase WAS DROPPED).
Thanks! 
8 Answers
ok... so when I say: Se rompió la tetera it means "someone accidentally broke the teapot" and "the teapot was broken"?
You are just saying that the teapot broke or got broken. The way most people would interpreted is that it happened because it fell, but the possibility that someone was responsible for breaking it is not discarded. The sentence simply does not provide that information: it only tells you what happened to the teapot, but not how it happened or whether someone did it or not.
"The teapot was broken" is "La tetera estaba rota", and that's simply a description of the state of the teapot.
Ok, first of all, in "Se me cayó el florero" there is no passive voice at all. Passive constructions are only possible with transitive verbs, and "caer" is not transitive, so that settles it.
Now the explanation: "caer" simply means "to fall", "to go down due to gravitational forces", while "caerse" indicates accidental drop, i.e. from being stable to fall because of a reason. That "se" focuses on the start of the action, and it has no equivalent in English. The "me" is an indirect object that indicates that you are affected or involved in the event in some way. This sentence would be more like "It accidentally fell from my hands."
Hi kobi, welcome to the forum..
It doesn't simply make it passive, there is a little point that you should kno
Se cayó el florero. : maybe it's the wind, or a ball that made it fall..
Se me cayó el florero : it's not itentionally, you dropped it, it's not your fault but you let it fall.
Dejé caer el florero : You just opend your hand for the vase to fall.
So, se doesn't make it passive...
ok... so when I say: Se rompió la tetera it means "someone accidentally broke the teapot" and "the teapot was broken"?
Not really. It means that the teapot broke or got broken. Without further context, we can only guess how it happened.
Se rompió la tetera al cabo de los años debido a las rajas [it broke on its own]
Se rompió la tetera para la película [they needed a broken teapot for a movie, so they broke it]
Se rompió la tetera al caerse con las vibraciones del terremoto [the earthquake shaked the house and the teapot broke]
Se rompió la tetera cuando se me cayó [it was in my hands and I dropped it]
Se rompió la tetera ---> make a guess!!!
That "se" is simply removing other people or causes out of the sentence for whichever the reason. Maybe it's because we don't know why it broke, or maybe because we don't want to admit that we broke it. It simply does not provide information about how it broke.
I see... so it only looks like the passive... right?
Like a passive? Well... a typical passive uses the verb "ser" plus a past participle, as in "Fue construido" (it was built). The "se" can also be used to convey a similar idea, which is why grammars call it "passive reflexive se", but that is only one of many possible uses of this "se".
Lazarus said:
but that is only one of many possible uses of this "se".
Kobi, you absolutely must study the uses of "se" because they are not all reflexive or passive.
"Se is undoubtedly the most versatile of the Spanish pronouns."spanish.about.com.
ok... so when I say: Se rompió la tetera it means "someone accidentally broke the teapot" and "the teapot was broken"?
I see... so it only looks like the passive... right?
