livingdeb: (Default)
[personal profile] livingdeb
DuoLingo is now trying to teach me about the passive voice.

(The passive voice is where you don't need to worry your pretty little head about what the subject is. For example, "Decisions were made." Who did the deciding? That is not for you to know.)

So, this is super easy in Spanish; you just put the word "se" in front of the verb. At first, DuoLingo was always making me use singular verbs and then suddenly it wasn't, so I had to do research.

It turns out, sometimes you don't need to know the object, either. This is what was happening in the first sentences I saw.

So, what kind of sentence has no subject and no object? Here's a common example:
Spanish - Sí, se puede.
Literal English - Yes, is able. Or Yes, can.

My first pass on translating these sentences is to use "one" as the subject. Because, unlike Spanish, English is addicted to having some sort of subject. DuoLingo also helpfully points out that sometimes we use "people," "they," or "you" as the subject.

Natural English - Yes, one can. Or Yes, you can. Or Yes, people can. Or Yes, they can. Or, during demonstrations, Yes, we can. Or Yes, it can (be done). Or Yes, it's possible. (I definitely feel sorry for English learners trying to guess the best way to deal with passive sentences in English.)

Here's an example from Duo's list of key phrases for talking about customs:

Spanish: No se trabaja ni en las noches ni los fines de semana.
Literal English: Not is worked neither in the nights nor the ends of week.
Natural English: People don't work at night or on weekends.

The sentence doesn't say what you're working on (just when you're working). So there's no object to match, and so that's when you always use the third-person singular.

What fooled me, ahem, confused me, is that although, when a passive sentence has an object, we can use the object to look like the subject, we could instead use these other subjects. For example, here's another common sentence:

Spanish - Aquí se habla español.
English - Spanish is spoken here.

But you could also say People speak Spanish here, or They speak Spanish here. In this case, the word "Spanish" is singular, so the verb is still singular.

Here's an example from DuoLingo of the type of sentence that got me:

Spanish - El treinta y uno de octubre, se regalan dulces.
Literal English - The thirty and one of October, are given sweets.
Natural English - On October 31st, sweets are given. Or, as Duolingo says, On October 31st, people give sweets as gifts. (They add "as gifts" to show which word for "to give" to use--there's also "dar.")

So, even though they're using the people-do-this-custom structure for this sentence, there is an object (sweets) which is plural, and so that's why the verb is plural. Mystery solved!

(Note, "dulces" is usually translated as "candy," which is singular, but I was trying not to confuse you.)

There are many uses for the word "se" in Spanish; in passive sentences with an object, it's called, eloquently enough, the passive "se."

What Duo was trying to teach me was the impersonal "se." And then mixing it up with other types of "se" to make me crazy, ahem, to let me practice telling the difference.

Other note: In addition to the passive "se" and the impersonal "se" are the reflexive "se," the accidental "se," the reciprocal "se," and more. Those are not covered in this post, but Mango Languages has a nice summary of how to use "se" in Spanish.

Profile

livingdeb: (Default)
livingdeb

August 2025

S M T W T F S
     1 2
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 5th, 2025 07:02 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios