Se molestó
Help please? 'Nadie se molestó en contarme nada.' I think it says 'No one bothered to tell me anything.' But i don't understand why 'se' or 'en' are used. Unless i completely misunderstood the sentence! Thankyou for reading
3 Answers
The se is there to provide pronominal meaning. In our dictionary notice that one meaning ot the transitive verb is bother (perturbrar) while the pronominal meaning is bother (incomodarse). The pronominal usage tell you what the contextual meaning for bother is.
As far as the "en" goes, one of the hardest things for English students to learn about Spanish is which verbs need propositions and which prepostions that they need, as each prepositions mimics so many different English prepositions. I think that you'll have to learn why the "en" is there by mimicking Spanish usage as you encounter it.
Your understanding is correct.
"Se" here indicates that they didn´t bother themselves (as opposed to not bothering someone else). "En" is just the preposition that is commonly used in this type of construction.
I think you are right in your translation (according to Google). I have a feeling the 'se' means an action done to oneself, so I'm guessing in this case it means "to bother oneself".
As for the "en" I don't know why that's there, because if it's "to tell me anything" then I think the 'to' is already included in "contarme" but that's just my guess. Waiting for an answer on that one too.
