When to use reflexive pronouns
In a Spanish Dict grammar section about using the subjunctive with uncompleted actions, one of the examples says, "Me iré sea que se decidan a salir o no." It's translated as ,"I'll leave whether they decide to go or not." I get that because "sea que" means "whether", but I don't get why the "se" is there. My guess is that the "decidan" is reflexive.
Ive known decidir for a while but havn't seen it be reflexive. I've also seen verbs like sentir which I learned as reflexive verbs used whithout the reflexive pronoun. Can any verb be reflexive if one wants to emphasize that it refers to oneself? Is it correct to skip the pronoun if one doesn't want to emphasize it? Are there different rules about reflexive pronouns for different verbs?
3 Answers
Paralee, when talking about verbs, refers to them as reflexive verbs in her videos to simplify matters for beginners.. However, in Spanish, there are no such things as reflexive verbs.... they are technically (gramatically) referred to as pronominal verbs, which have reflexive endings! I learnt this fact a long time ago from our native grammar expert, Lazarus.
I am not a grammar expert myself so I am not even going to try to explain why they are called pronominal verbs but the reflexive endings mean that the person does the action to themself/herself/themselves. etc...eg Me ducho = I shower myself., me llamo = I call myself , but we would actually say,, I am called.
In the example you give, the verb decidirse is used which means that the endings are reflexive and the person/s does the action to themself/ves. So, in this context it means I will leave/ I am going to leave whether or not they make up their minds to go out. You are correct about that!
I may be wrong, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that any verb can be reflexive just because you might want to make it refer to yourself. Some verbs can be used in a reflexive way and the endings will show you if they can be used this way;...others cannot be used in this way!
If you skip/omit the reflexive pronoun how would anyone know to whom it is meant to refer? What would be the point of missing it out? It is meant to be there for a reason! The only pronouns you can really omit are the personal pronouns like yo, tú, él etc...because the verbs in Spanish are conjugated in such a way that they make obvious the person to whom they refer! For example, Sé = I know, voy = I go, jugábamos = we used to play/we were playing etc...
Do not think, for example, of omitting the reflexive pronoun, me, in me voy because voy and me voy do not mean exactly the same thing: Voy = I go (from ir) me voy = I am leaving (from irme) and the way these verbs are used is different You do not have to indicate a destination with the verb irme you can simply say Tengo que irme, ahora =I have to leave, now but with ir you must show where the subject is going, eg: Vamos al cine = We are going to the cinema.
I am not gong to attempt to answer all your questions, I will leave that to Lazarus and other grammarians, but I think I have covered the main points.
I hope this helps 
Yes, Feliz is right, the reflexive pronoun in your example has nothing to do with the subjunctive.
It's just that the sentence uses the pronominal form of the verb 'decidirse' which means 'to make one's mind up' rather than 'decidir' (to decide).
There are a number of pronominal verbs that have different meanings than the base verb.
ir - to go
irse - to leave a place
comer - to eat
comerse - to eat all up
etc
I didn't read your whole question last night and explained a different aspect of your sentence . This is something that may help. Open Link below and look for decidirse. There are a lot of other great examples as well.
