Olvidarse
I'm looking for a good way to explain the meaning of -Se me olvidó.-, -Se le olvidó.-, etc. to my English-speaking students learning Spanish. I have told them that in Spanish one is not accountable or blamed for having forgotten something as is done in the English language. I need some examples in English of what -Se me olvidó.- actually (literally) means in Spanish. Is "I left my homework on the bus." equal to "My homework was left on the bus." in Spanish? (As if the homework is the culprit; it left itself on the bus).
7 Answers
As I understand it olvidarse is used to show that you did not do it on purpose.
If you had said "Olvidé la llaves en la casa," it would be like saying you forgot them on purpose.
"Me olvidé las llaves" shows that it was accidental.
It is not as sharp as purposefully / accidentally, but rather a matter of slight hints:
Olvidé las llaves
Me olvidé de las llaves
Se me olvidaron las llaves
As you go down from the first to the last, you become somehow less and less guilty, but you are not admitting your guilt (or lack of) at any time, but just suggesting it. The whole point is that you are trying to make people look more in one direction (the one that doesn't make you guilty) as you go down the list. The context, and everything else will decide the rest.
Thank you Ross for the clarification. So If I really don't know whether I myself or my roommate might have misplaced them then I totally see that. It's beginning to make sense to me. I will have to check out Paralee's stuff.
Thanks everybody.
You can go back and watch Learn Spanish 3.12 Se Impersonal, Passive and Unexpected Events. It's the ''unexpected events'' part that we are talking about here. The speaker is only taking a very small part of the blame for losing the keys, hence the word 'me'.
- The keys accidentally lost themselves. I couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it...well...maybe just a little. Paralee does a great job of explaining this in the last section LS 3.12.
Thanks you guys for this thread ! I needed this since I was going nuts about this.
I usually translated "Se me olvidaron las llaves" as "The keys forgot themselves to me" just an get an idea of what it says technically.
The thread is very helpful but I wanted to as clarify again. I see 2 separate issues:
- Using olvidar reflexively.
- Using it in a way that makes the object forgotten the subject of the sentence and the person who forgot merely an innocent bystander. I had this discussion with my spanish co-worker and it appears he isn't even really aware of how strange that is to us non-natives.
What bugs me still is this.
Why would I intentionally forget my keys ? That's just a pain the butt so I'd think nobody would say "Olvidé las llaves" unless they intentionally forgot them to achieve a spacific goal whatever that might be. In fact how many times does anyone forget anything purposefully ? Doesn't the word itself kind of suggest that it was out of my hands ?
Let's say its my girlfriend's birthday and I forgot to bring her present. So I say "Lo olvidé". Does that suggest to her that I really didn't wanna bring it in the first place ?
Also, if I already use olvidar reflexively to shift focus away from me then why change the "doer" to an IO ? Either way I'm always the one doing the forgetting. If I read this right this is just yet another level of "focus shifting" right ? The last one makes me the most innocent ?
Lastly an interesting other word. Ocurrir.
se me ocurre que… -> it occurs to me that…
This helped me a bit since we use that word the same way in English but here its clear. Something is doing something to me even though in the end it's I who has the thought/idea. Guess you could argue who is the "doer" here as well...hmmm Is it true then that olvidarse and ocurrirse are used the same way in Spanish while not in English ?
food for thought....
As I understand it olvidarse is used to show that you did not do it on purpose.
If you had said "Olvidé las llaves en la casa," it would be like saying you forgot them on purpose.
"Me olvidé las llaves" shows that it was accidental.
The difference between "the glass is half full" or "half empty" is all about the perspective, and not about correct grammar or objective description about the contents of the glass. Spanish, like many other languages, has different ways of expressing the same idea, sometimes achieving the same effect, sometimes altering the perspective or adding different connotations.
"Olvidé mis tareas" is normally interpreted as "I accidentally left my homework somewhere", but there is always the possibility that the sentence can also be interpreted as "I made my best not to remember that I had a homework", since you are the subject of the sentence, and the thing to be forgotten is a direct object, so you can be regarded as the one who is executing the action of forgetting. When you say "Olvídame" (=forget me!), you are commanding someone to forget you, purposefully. With this transitive construction, you can be in control of the act of forgetting if you wish to.
In the construction "Me olvidé de...", the meaning is pretty much the same, but the presence of the "me" (and therefore the lack of a direct object) makes the person less in control of the ability to purposefully and willingly forget something or someone. This time, it can hardly be something that you do because you really want to, like moving your hands. A command with this construction wouldn't sound as definite as with the plain "olvidar" construction.
In the construction "Se me olvidó...", you are not even the grammatical subject of the sentence, but someone involved in the event, and denoted by an INDIRECT object. We are not talking about something voluntary, or semi-voluntary, but a mere accident, that also affects you somehow. Here, something is left where it shouldn't have been left, and you are affected by it as much as anyone else. With this construction, you are "less guilty" in a way.
I'm not sure that I agree with your premise about Spanish not laying blame as English does. I think, that is exactly the difference between the pronominal verb olvidarse and the non-pronominal verb olvidar.
I think the distinction is whether you wished to say someone left something behind on purpose or did so absentmindedly with no blame connotation or whether you wished to say that someone completely let it slip their mind and therefore left it behind. (a matter of emphasis or personal culpability))
Look at these two sentences from our dictionary:
olvidé las llaves en la oficina -> I left my keys at the office.
me he olvidado el paraguas en el tren -> I've left my umbrella on the train
In English without further context they read the same. Let's let a native who is more familiar with the connotative uses contrast the different meanings between the pronominal and non-pronominal use.
I think another way to state this contrast is whether the concept is active or passive. Either I left my keys or my keys were left. To me the active voice carries blame and the passive voice does not.
