Question about: "No se oía ningún sonido"
Hello,
I've started to learn spanish a little while ago and came across this example on the following page: http://www.spanishdict.com/videos/oír "no se oía ningún sonido" - translated to "I could not hear any sound"
oía is indeed the imperfect tense of yo, but also the imperfect tense of él/ella/Ud., and since 'se' is used, shouldn't it be the latter? Then it would mean that nobody in general couldn't hear any sound right?
Is this a wrong translation or am I missing something?
1 Answer
The translation is quite good. The subject in Spanish does not exist, it is an impersonal sentence like Está lloviendo. The sentence does not say us that "I cannot hear any sound", the sentence said "No sound can be heard" (by anybody). The translation (I could not hear any sound) could be valid depending of the context: if the sentence is said by a character relating a history in first person.
It is difficult to explain for me, but my option in English would be:
No sound can be heard
PD: Spanish people love the impersonal sentences because we use them a lot when we have fail in something or we have not do any work. 
PD: My reply button does not work for me, so I answer your reply here: You can say yo no oia ningún sonido but a native Spanish speaker never would say that. We would say no oía ningún sonido or better no se oía ningún sonido.
