Spanish Verbs for "to happen"

Question

I´m curious about the differences among the various verbs for "to happen" - ocurrir, pasar, suceder, acontecer (there may be others). It´s my impression (asking for enlightenment here) that ocurrir and pasar are a little more conversational, informal, and likely to be personal; that suceder is common, but has some sense of "happen as a result of...."; and acontecer is used more formally and impersonally, and perhaps has a sense of a random event. Some examples: ¿qué ocurre? -> what's the matter? ¿qué le ocurre a Juan? -> what's up with Juan? ¿te ocurre algo? -> is anything the matter?

¿qué pasa aquí? -> what's going on here? ¿qué pasa? -> what's the matter? ¿qué le pasa? -> what's wrong with him?, what's the matter with him?

Sucedió así -> it happened so Suceda lo que suceda -> happen what may Lo que sucede es que -> the fact is that

A catastrophic event. ->Un acontecimiento catastrófico.

Please comment!

Answer 1

That sounds just right to me, though I´ll be happy to see other responses. It seems that ocurrir is a bit more informal in Spanish than occur is in English. Not that occur is that formal in English, but definitely a little more technical than happen, whereas ocurrir seems every bit as casual as happen. If it happens that.... Sí ocurre...

I´ve noticed a fair number of jokes that start of by setting the scene with ocurre. Now if only my Spanish were good enough to follow more than about 1 of 3 of the jokes that follow...

Answer 2

I regularly see and hear pasar, ocurrir and suceder used to express "to happen" I have not heard or seen the other two used. In order of most common by my experience they are pasar, ocurrir and then suceder. With suceder showing up mostly in subtitles, newspapers, and news reports

Answer 3

I think pasar has several uses including to pass as in to pass someone an item or to go past and, of course also to happed. I believe ocurrir and suceder mainly mean to happen.

Yes, and to pass time. Maybe that´s why ocurrir is used a lot. Pasar is already pretty busy. - rogspax, Feb 8, 2013

Answer 4

Here's what I found:

to happen: pasar, acontecer. ocurrir, suceder, and acaecer

happening:

acontecimiento - happening

suceso - event

I guess I didn't really explain the differences. - swampy, Feb 8, 2013

Thank you, swampy - acaecer is new to me! Looks like it, too, is pretty formal! - rickharned, Feb 8, 2013