"Se nos acabó la leche"?

Question

I am confused about the use of some pronouns.

How should I understand, "Se nos acabó la leche"? (Someone noticing that the milk carton is empty.) I would think that the English translation would read "Our milk is gone." But, the Spanish pronouns would seem to indicate more, perhaps, "The milk to us has finished itself". What am I misunderstanding?

The same problem surfaced in another sentence spoken in the context of a shopping trip, "Se nos acabaron las tallas pequeñas." I would think that in English this would read, "Our small sizes have sold out." Is the Spanish indicating something like this, "The small sizes have finished themselves to us?"

Answer 1

I haven't noted this particular use with acabar. However, this is exactly the same useage as with olvidar.

Se me olvidó la leche - It forgot itself to me the milk (I forgot the milk.)

Se nos acabó la leche - It finished itself to us the milk (We finished the milk.)

If you think about it, olvidar and acabar are functioning in this way like the verb gustar, in that the thing forgotten, or finished, becomes the subject of the verb, and the person who forgot becomes the indirect object

For some reason the site is not letting me edit this right now. But better translations of the examples would be: The milk forgot itself to me; The milk finished itself to us. - Jeremias, Nov 24, 2011

Answer 2

In my mind, this is saying "Oops, we finished the milk". This construction is used when you don't want to place blame or to lower the sense of blame.

Yes, that's it excactly. - Jeremias, Nov 25, 2011