About "se"
"Casi se me acaba la fe." I know that "me acaba" is "acabarse", but I have no idea about "se". What is its usage?? Can somebody help me? Thanks!
4 Answers
It is indeed acabar(se), conjugated here as se acaba. The subject is la fe, and me (a mí) is the indirect object. The sentence means "My faith is almost running out" or "I'm almost running out of faith."
Most Spanish verbs have a rather strict syntactic behaviour. In general, transitive verbs require a subject (whoever or whatever does something) and an object (something to do). Transitive verbs can sometimes also take an indirect object, a third party who will be affected in any way by the action. Very few verbs can become intransitive simply by dropping the object, like in English "I broke the radio" (subject + verb + object) and "The radio broke" (subject + verb). Even when this is possible, the indirect object cannot normally be added to it (something like "The radio broke on me".)
The usual mechanism to use a transitive verb without objects is to signal this change in the usage of the verb with "se". Thus, "Rompí la radio" can be turned into "La radio se rompió". Without this "se", we would be expecting the radio to break something else; we'd expect an object to appear there. This new version where the "se" removes the need for a direct object also allows indirect objects to be added to the sentence.
"Acabar" is one of those rare transtive verb that do not require "se" to be used without an object. So you can perfectly say "La película (se) acabó", with or without "se", only the one with "se" will accept an indirect object like "me". If you try to add an indirect object to the verb without "se", a native's mind will instantly wonder where is the direct object, which of course, is missing.
Bottom line: "se" allows you to use transitive verbs without direct objects, whilst letting you use indirect ones with them.
¡Hola!, Esperanza18:
I suspect that :"Casi se me acaba la fe." = "I almost lost (it) my faith." We do not say the "it" in english.
We have a couple of Reference Pages that might be some help to you on this subject. There quick readers but require some thought. Here they are:
THese should be some help to you.
Muchos saludos/Best regards
Moe.
"me acabo" would be acabarse.
