agítese antes de usarlo (shake well before use)
Hi Friends,
Many of us must have noticed this instruction on the bottles of liquid medicines like cough syrup ... but when we look at the Spanish version of this instruction .. it reads "agítese antes de usarlo" ...which is all well and good but I am not sure why the reflexive pronoun is used along with the verb agitar ... because agitar means to shake and agitarse means to shake oneself ... for example .. cuando se levanta mi perro, se agita el cuerpo (when my dog gets up, he shakes his body) but if we are using the reflexive in our sentence it seems more like .. "shake yourself before using the medicine " hahaha..
Kindly share your views dear friends 
3 Answers
agítese antes de usarlo
This is written in same form as we write headlines in news articles. The missing word is another lo, so to make the sentence grammatically correct it should be: Agíteselo (Ud.) antes de usarlo. And you´re right - it´s imperative. The se here is to emphasize you but not to indicate passive voice.
The lo in this case cannot mean bottle because of a gender disagreement, so it in effect is a lo of nueter gender.
We can also write this in a less confusing manner by using only infinitive, ie: Agitar antes de usar.
Before coming down to a conclusion like that, we should study the use of "se." I read it, and the meaning I get is that I need that shake the bottle. Let's remember that SE is used to create sentences in passive form and of impersonal nature.
As many have said there's more to "se" than just reflexive verbs. The way I would directly translate that would be, "shake itself before you using it." The se confirming the subject and that it itself is needed to be shaken. Give me another 10 years living in latin america and I'll give you a real answer.
