"Se Te Paga"
I was reading through a Spanish textbook where there was a play, in which a character was telling another character that they're paid pretty nicely. The quote was "No se te paga tan mal, entonces, si te puedes comprar una revista"
I was just curious about the construction of Se Te Paga, I don't really know what the Se and Te are supposed to represent in this case. I can provide more context if needed, thanks!
6 Answers
Hi phil
Nice question .
it means: you get a decent salary...so you can buy a magazine.
Se te paga: you get paid (passive)
Se me debe. Someone owes me
Se te entiende. People understand you. You are understood.
Se le exige. He/she is demanded. People demand from him/her.
Se nos alienta. We are encouraged. People or they encourage us to do something.
Se les prohibe. They are banned o they aren't allowed .
etc etc. etc.
So it could be
Se me paga, se te paga, se le paga, se nos paga, se os paga( for peninsular Spanish) and se les pagan depending on who is paid.
"No se te paga tan mal, entonces, si te puedes comprar una revista"
"You're not paid so badly. Now you can buy yourself a magazine."
This is passive voice as opposed to “No te pagan tan mal.” “They don’t pay you so badly.”
To continue the dialogue in the same passive sense…..
«Si a mí se me pagara igual, compraría la casa editorial.» “If I were paid the same, I would buy the publisher.”
The important part es la “se me pagara”. Ir’s a different tense because it’s conditional.
Another way to understand the passive voice is: “se pagó a mí”. “It was paid to me” (“se me pagó”). “It” is something referred to previously.
I don't really know what the Se and Te are supposed to represent in this case.
My non-native opinion, to break it down a bit more:
Se paga- “it” is paid (sometimes it is useful to think: it pays itself, although some grammarians would argue that that is not really what it says)
Se te paga- “it” is paid to you
Where te is the indirect object (hence “to you”)
And “se” matches paga, so your reflexive (actually more correctly pronominal) subject, that se refers to and paga is conjugated to is that unnamed “it” which represents your salary, what you are paid.
I would defer to native opinion if there is disagreement with my breakdown.
Hi bosque, have a look at this:
“Verbo pronominal Verbo pronominal es el que se construye obligatoriamente con un pronombre. Hay verbos exclusivamente pronominales (arrepentirse, fugarse). Otros adoptan determinados matices significativos o expresivos en las formas reflexivas (caerse, morirse, lavarse, frente a caer, morir, lavar). (La Terminología no recoge la expresión “verbo reflexivo”, término más tradicional pero menos exacto).”
This is a passive sentence, we call it "pasiva refleja". We hardly ever use "pure" passive.
Se te paga un sueldo.
Un sueldo te es pagado por la empresa. (sounds like chinese to me, as we simply don't use it) La empresa te paga un sueldo.
No se te paga tan mal...
I think it is an impersonal passive sentence.
An impersonal sentence would be:
No te pagan tan mal... (THEY don't pay you so badly, where THEY refers to a particular group of people, but not a precise group.)
Te is the indirect object: you: They don't pay you so badly.
With the particle se the sentence becomes impersonal passive:
No se te paga tan mal... (You aren´t paid so badly, as DonBigote said).
Thus I think this is rather an impersonal passive sentence.
