No such thing as a perfectly reliable source.
While working again to learn the various uses of the pronoun "se", I found this on a site intending to help with the subject: "As is explained in the lesson on reflexive pronouns, such pronouns (meaning all of the reflexive pronouns) indicate that the subject of a verb is also its object. In English, this is usually accompanied by using verbs such as himself, herself, or themselves." I failed to notice it at first, but something didn't register as "right" so I re-read it. Then I noticed it had identified "himself" etc. as verbs rather than as pronouns. Although there was no problem with the facts of what "se" and other reflexive pronouns mean, unintended errors such as this are something to watch for.
2 Answers
Actually, considering that the object is also the subject is a good rule of thumb; but, just like most cases with spanish, there's a lot more than just one rule to apply here and just one meaning to consider. "se" IS NOT ALWAYS REFLEXIVE. When the indirect object "le" or "les" is followed by the direct object "los" "las" "lo" or "la", then the indirect object becomes "se". "Juan le da los zapatos a Jillian". "John gives Jillian the shoes". "Juan SE los da". "Juan gives them to HER". It's useful to look up direct and indirect objects before going into the reflexive. What can be VERY confusing is that you can see "se" even though it is not a pronoun. This occurrs in the imperfect subjunctive tense; but if you know a lot of spanish, you can tell almost immediately how "se" makes sense in each case. Imperfect subjunctive example :"Juan nos trató como si no supiésemos lo que hizo". "Juan treated us as if we didn't know what he did." When you proofread that example, you can tell that "saber" is an irregular verb and that "se" could never be gramatically correct when attached that way by using the reflexive. That's a lot of work there. So "se" can be used as a reflexive pronoun, an indirect object pronoun, and it can also be seen in the imperfect subjunctive tense.
Addition: You are totally right! According to the quote you gave us, the site says
... this is usually accompanied by using verbs such as himself, herself, or themselves
That sentence is incorrectly written, mistakenly saying that verbs = himself, etc. and thus implying that verbs are pronouns. You were right to check other sources to confirm this; and just as you said, there is no such thing as a single "perfect" reliable source. It's always good to check other sources and have a diverse selection of spanish books, sites, and lessons at hand to enrichen your learning experience and deepen your vocabulary. Sorry for the long lesson earlier; you probably already knew that, making it quite useless.
Doesn't sound that odd to me. If you are going to call verbs used pronominally "reflexive verbs" as if they were a special class of verbs and ignore the role of the reflexive pronoun, then you may as well call "himself" an extension or parameter of the the verb and totally remove the "pronominal" meaning.
