By B1 you can say se me cayó el café. The hard part — and what makes the accidental se feel native rather than learned — is what happens once the verb is no longer a single finite form. Se me ha caído el móvil. Se le va a olvidar el cumpleaños. Se nos puede haber estropeado algo. The four-piece skeleton survives, but it now has to live alongside auxiliaries, modals, and periphrastic verbs. This page is about how the clitic cluster moves — and refuses to move — inside those larger structures, and about the pragmatic work the construction does when a Spaniard wants to talk about something going wrong without quite admitting they did it.
If the basic pattern is new to you, read the B1 page on accidental se first. Everything here builds on it.
The four moving parts, recapped
Every accidental-se sentence has four pieces in this order:
- se — the non-volitional marker. Never changes form.
- An indirect-object pronoun (me, te, le, nos, os, les) — marks the person the event happened to.
- A verb in 3rd person — agrees in number with the thing, not with the affected person.
- The thing — the grammatical subject of the verb.
What changes at B2 is step 3. The verb is no longer just cayó; it is se ha caído, se va a romper, se puede olvidar, cuando se le rompió. The clitics se + dative stay locked together as a single unit, and that unit slides as a block through whatever larger structure the verb sits in.
Se me ha caído el móvil al suelo otra vez.
I've dropped my phone on the floor again.
Se le van a olvidar los datos si no los apunta.
He's going to forget the data if he doesn't write it down.
Cuando se le rompió el ordenador, perdió todo el trabajo del mes.
When his computer broke, he lost a month's worth of work.
Cluster order and the redundant possessive
Two details from B1 become non-negotiable at B2.
Order is fixed. se always comes first; the dative follows. ❌me se cayó is the marker of uneducated speech in Spain — learners who reproduce it sound as if they are imitating it.
Drop the possessive. Once the dative is in place, the thing takes a definite article, not a possessive. The dative already tells you whose phone it is.
Se me ha caído el móvil.
I dropped my phone. (the dative 'me' implies it's mine — el móvil, not mi móvil)
A Marta se le perdieron las llaves del coche.
Marta lost her car keys. (le marks Marta as the affected party; las llaves, not sus llaves)
Disambiguating the 3rd person
In the 1st and 2nd person the dative is unambiguous (me, te, nos, os). In the 3rd person (le, les) it can refer to him, her, usted, or some third party already mentioned, so the affected party is usually doubled with a + NP.
A mi hermana se le ha roto el portátil otra vez.
My sister's laptop has broken again.
A los niños se les van a derretir los helados si no entras ya.
The kids' ice creams are going to melt if you don't come in soon.
A mí se me cayó el café encima en plena reunión.
I spilled coffee on myself right in the middle of the meeting. (emphatic — fronted A mí highlights who it happened to)
The third example shows the only natural way to add emphasis: front a + pronoun and let the dative do its normal work. Spanish does not stack a mí mismo on top of me in this construction — the dative already encodes the affected party, and piling on the reflexive sounds heavy and unidiomatic.
Section 1 — Accidental se in compound tenses
Peninsular Spanish uses the present perfect (pretérito perfecto compuesto) wherever Latin America tends to use the preterite for events from earlier today, so combinations like se me ha caído are some of the most frequent in real conversation. The structure plugs in cleanly:
se + dative + haber (3rd person, agreeing with the thing) + participio (invariable)
The participle stays in -o. Agreement lives on haber: ha caído vs han caído, había olvidado vs habían olvidado.
| Tense | Singular thing | Plural thing |
|---|---|---|
| Pretérito perfecto | Se me ha caído el vaso. | Se me han caído los vasos. |
| Pluscuamperfecto | Se le había olvidado la cita. | Se le habían olvidado las citas. |
| Futuro perfecto | Se nos habrá estropeado el motor. | Se nos habrán estropeado los frenos. |
| Condicional perfecto | Se te habría perdido igualmente. | Se te habrían perdido todas. |
| Pretérito perfecto subj. | Espero que no se te haya olvidado. | Espero que no se te hayan olvidado. |
Two structural rules, both unforgiving:
- The clitics se + dative sit before the auxiliary haber. They never go between haber and the participle. ❌ha se me caído and ❌se ha caído me are both impossible.
- The participle is locked in -o. It does not agree with the thing. ❌se me han caídos los vasos — wrong. The participle in haber + participio never agrees, accidental se included.
Se le había olvidado por completo que habíamos quedado a las ocho.
He had completely forgotten that we were meeting at eight.
Se nos habrán roto los auriculares en el viaje, porque ya no funcionan.
The headphones must have broken on the trip, because they don't work anymore.
Si lo hubieras dejado en la mesa, se te habría caído igual.
If you had left it on the table, it would have fallen anyway.
Espero que no se te haya olvidado meter las llaves en el bolso.
I hope you haven't forgotten to put the keys in your bag.
The pluperfect is the workhorse of narrative recall: cuando llegué, se le había roto el ordenador y estaba de los nervios — when I arrived, his computer had broken and he was a wreck.
Section 2 — Accidental se with modal and aspectual periphrases
This is the heart of B2. Spanish periphrases (ir a + inf, tener que + inf, poder + inf, deber + inf, querer + inf, acabar de + inf, estar + gerundio, estar a punto de + inf) all allow the clitic cluster to live in two places: glued onto the non-finite verb at the end, or climbed up to the front of the auxiliary. Both positions are correct; both are produced by native speakers; the choice is largely rhythmic.
The pattern for accidental se:
- Climbed (pre-verbal cluster): se + dative + auxiliar + inf → Se le va a olvidar.
- Enclitic (post-infinitival cluster): auxiliar + inf-se-dative → Va a olvidársele.
Both mean exactly the same thing. In everyday peninsular speech the climbed version (se le va a olvidar) is far more frequent. The enclitic version (va a olvidársele) is fully natural in writing and slightly more careful speech, and it carries an extra written accent because the stressed syllable now falls more than three syllables from the end.
Se le va a olvidar tu cumpleaños como no se lo recuerdes.
He's going to forget your birthday if you don't remind him.
Va a olvidársele tu cumpleaños como no se lo recuerdes.
He's going to forget your birthday if you don't remind him. (same meaning, enclitic placement; slightly more careful register)
Se nos pueden estropear los archivos si no haces una copia.
The files might get corrupted on us if you don't make a backup.
Pueden estropeársenos los archivos si no haces una copia.
The files might get corrupted on us if you don't make a backup. (enclitic — same meaning)
The same alternation applies across the whole periphrasis family.
A mi padre se le tiene que pasar el enfado, no le digas nada todavía.
My father's anger has to wear off — don't say anything to him yet.
Tiene que pasársele el enfado, no le digas nada todavía.
His anger has to wear off — don't say anything to him yet. (enclitic placement)
Se me está olvidando el inglés de tanto no usarlo.
My English is slipping away from me because I never use it.
Está olvidándoseme el inglés de tanto no usarlo.
My English is slipping away from me because I never use it. (enclitic on the gerund — slightly literary)
Se le acaba de caer el yogur encima a la niña, voy a por una bayeta.
The yogurt just fell on the kid — I'm going to get a cloth.
Se les está echando a perder la fruta que compramos el sábado.
The fruit we bought on Saturday is going off on us.
Two-auxiliary periphrases: deeper climbing
When the periphrasis is itself compound — poder haber + participio, tener que haber + participio — the clitic cluster can climb all the way to the front of the leftmost finite verb, or attach enclitically to the infinitive haber. Both are common; the wedged middle position is impossible.
Se nos puede haber roto algo durante la mudanza.
Something may have broken on us during the move.
Puede habérsenos roto algo durante la mudanza.
Something may have broken on us during the move. (enclitic on the infinitive haber)
Se le ha podido olvidar la contraseña otra vez.
He may have forgotten the password again. (clitic climbing across the whole structure; participle in -o)
The wedged variants — ❌puede se nos haber roto, ❌puede habernos se roto, ❌va a se le olvidar — do not exist in any register. Clitics either climb fully to the front of the leftmost finite verb or attach as a single cluster to a non-finite verb. They never sit between two non-finite forms.
The verb-class inventory you need at B2
You met the core verbs at B1: caer, romper, perder, olvidar, quemar, acabar, escapar, ocurrir. At B2 the high-frequency periphrastic forms add a few more:
| Verb | Common periphrastic form | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| olvidar | se le va a olvidar / se le ha olvidado | he's going to forget / he forgot |
| estropear | se nos puede estropear | it might get ruined on us |
| pasar | se te tiene que pasar (el enfado, el susto) | it has to wear off you |
| derretir | se les van a derretir los helados | their ice creams are going to melt |
| enfriar | se nos está enfriando la cena | our dinner is getting cold |
| acabar | se nos va a acabar la gasolina | we're going to run out of petrol |
| ocurrir | se me ha ocurrido una idea | I've had an idea |
| escapar | se le ha escapado el perro otra vez | his dog has run off again |
| echar a perder | se les está echando a perder la fruta | their fruit is going bad |
Section 3 — Pragmatic work: softening responsibility
The accidental se is not just a grammatical pattern; it is one of peninsular Spanish's main tools for managing blame. The same event can be reported two ways, and the choice carries a real social signal.
| Plain transitive | Accidental se |
|---|---|
| He estropeado el móvil. | Se me ha estropeado el móvil. |
| (I broke the phone — admission) | (My phone broke on me — circumstance) |
| Perdí las llaves. | Se me perdieron las llaves. |
| (I lost the keys — blame) | (The keys got lost on me — bad luck) |
| Olvidé tu cumpleaños. | Se me olvidó tu cumpleaños. |
| (I forgot your birthday — apology weight) | (Your birthday slipped my mind — softer) |
The accidental construction doesn't deny that the speaker was involved — me still marks them as the affected party — but it frames the event as something that happened to them rather than something they did. In apology, complaint, and excuse-making contexts the accidental form is the polite default.
Perdona, se me ha olvidado por completo llamarte ayer.
Sorry, I completely forgot to call you yesterday. (softer than 'olvidé llamarte')
Se me ha estropeado el móvil, por eso no contesté.
My phone broke, that's why I didn't pick up. (excuse — circumstance, not fault)
A mí se me han caído las copas otra vez. ¡Qué torpe soy!
The glasses fell on me again. I'm such a klutz!
Notice the self-deprecating ¡qué torpe soy! in the last example: even when the speaker admits clumsiness, the event itself is grammatically framed as an accident. The lexical admission and the grammatical softening live side by side, and the combination is very peninsular.
English contrast: don't reach for "on me"
English has fragmentary versions of this — the car died on me, the milk went off on me — but the construction is marginal and the on me phrase only attaches to certain verbs of failure. Most English translations of accidental se use the plain transitive (I dropped the phone), a passive (the phone got dropped), or a happen to periphrasis (my phone happened to break). None of them carries the same pragmatic weight as the Spanish construction. When you translate from Spanish into English, you usually lose the accident frame; when you translate from English into Spanish, you usually need to put it back in.
Section 4 — Inside subjunctive subordinates and conditional clauses
Once a subjunctive trigger sits in the matrix clause — wish, fear, emotion, doubt — the accidental construction follows the standard sequence-of-tenses rules. The clitic cluster stays exactly where you would expect it; only the verb that agrees with the thing changes tense and mood.
Espero que no se te olvide la reunión de mañana.
I hope you don't forget tomorrow's meeting.
Tengo miedo de que se nos rompa algo más antes de la mudanza.
I'm afraid something else of ours will break before the move.
Ojalá no se le hayan olvidado los pasaportes en casa.
I hope she hasn't left the passports at home.
Me extrañaría que se le ocurriera algo mejor en tan poco tiempo.
I'd be surprised if he came up with anything better in such a short time.
The same logic carries through temporal, conditional, and concessive clauses:
Cuando se le rompió el ordenador en plena entrega del proyecto, casi se echa a llorar.
When his computer broke right in the middle of submitting the project, he nearly burst into tears.
Si se nos hubieran olvidado las entradas, no nos habrían dejado pasar.
If we had forgotten the tickets, they wouldn't have let us in.
Aunque se le caiga el yogur al suelo, no le riñas — sólo tiene dos años.
Even if he drops the yogurt on the floor, don't tell him off — he's only two.
A register note: peninsular vocabulary in the thing slot
The construction is neutral, used everywhere from a child's complaint to a king's address. What changes by register is the thing. In casual peninsular speech:
- Neutral: Se me ha estropeado el coche. The car broke.
- Informal, hyperbolic: Se me ha cargado el ordenador. The laptop crashed on me.
- Informal: Se me ha fastidiado el plan. My plan got messed up.
- Vulgar: Se me ha jodido el móvil. My phone is buggered.
For things breaking or stopping working, Spain reaches for estropearse / romperse (neutral, formal) or cargarse / fastidiarse / joderse (informal, vulgar). The Latin American descomponerse is not used in Spain.
Se me ha cargado el portátil justo cuando iba a entregar el trabajo. ¡Vaya tela!
My laptop crashed on me right when I was about to hand in the assignment. What a pain!
Se nos ha estropeado la lavadora y va a venir el técnico mañana.
Our washing machine has broken and the technician is coming tomorrow.
Common Mistakes
❌ Me se ha roto el ordenador.
Wrong order — 'se' must come before the dative pronoun. *me se* is socially marked as uneducated speech in Spain.
✅ Se me ha roto el ordenador.
My computer broke.
❌ Se me ha caído mi móvil al suelo.
Redundant possessive — the dative 'me' already marks the phone as mine. Use 'el móvil'.
✅ Se me ha caído el móvil al suelo.
I dropped my phone on the floor.
❌ Se me ha olvidado las llaves en casa.
Agreement error — 'las llaves' is plural, so 'haber' must be plural: 'han'. The verb agrees with the thing, not with the speaker.
✅ Se me han olvidado las llaves en casa.
I left the keys at home.
❌ Va a se le olvidar.
Clitics cannot wedge between two verbal forms. Either climb fully ('se le va a olvidar') or attach enclitically to the infinitive ('va a olvidársele').
✅ Se le va a olvidar. / Va a olvidársele.
He's going to forget. (both placements are correct)
❌ Se me ha caídos los vasos.
The participle never agrees in 'haber + participio'. It stays in -o. Agreement is on the auxiliary: 'se me han caído'.
✅ Se me han caído los vasos.
The glasses fell (and broke).
❌ Se me ha descompuesto el coche.
Lexical: 'descomponerse' is Latin American. In Spain a car 'se estropea', 'se avería', or — informally — 'se carga'.
✅ Se me ha estropeado el coche.
My car has broken down.
Key Takeaways
- The four-piece skeleton — se + dative + verb agreeing with the thing + the thing — survives every B2 expansion. What changes is only the verb in slot 3.
- In compound tenses, haber agrees with the thing and the participle stays in -o: se me han caído los papeles, not ❌ se me han caídos los papeles.
- In periphrases, the cluster either climbs fully to the front (se le va a olvidar) or attaches enclitically to the non-finite verb (va a olvidársele). Both are correct; the climbed version dominates everyday peninsular speech.
- Clitics never split. ❌ va a se le olvidar, ❌ puede haberse nos roto — both impossible. The cluster moves as one block.
- Inside subjunctive subordinates, the construction follows normal sequence-of-tenses: espero que no se te olvide, temía que se le hubiera roto.
- The dative makes a possessive on the thing redundant: se me ha caído el móvil, never ❌ se me ha caído mi móvil.
- Pragmatically, the accidental construction frames an event as circumstance rather than agency — the polite default for apologies, excuses, and reports of mishaps.
- Peninsular vocabulary in the thing slot: estropearse, romperse, cargarse, fastidiarse — not descomponerse.
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Se accidental o se involuntario: 'se me cayó'B1 — The Spanish construction that turns accidents into events that happen TO you, not BY you — how 'se me cayó el vaso' grammatically dodges the blame.
- Pronombres combinados con infinitivosB1 — When a verb phrase has a conjugated verb plus an infinitive, combined object pronouns can either sit before the conjugated verb (Me lo va a decir) or attach to the end of the infinitive (Va a decírmelo) — both are correct, but the accent on the attached form is non-negotiable.
- Orden de los pronombres: SE-TE-ME-LOA2 — When two or more object pronouns cluster before the same verb, Spanish always orders them the same way — and once you learn the mnemonic SE-TE-ME-LO, you never have to think about it again.
- Ir a + infinitivo: futuro y planesA1 — The workhorse near-future construction of spoken peninsular Spanish — voy a + infinitive for plans, intentions, and imminent events.
- Tener que + infinitivo: obligación personalA1 — The everyday Spanish way to say 'I have to' — tengo que + infinitive for personal obligations, requirements, and necessities.
- Dativo ético: 'no me llores'C1 — The 'extra' dative pronoun that signals emotional involvement — colloquial peninsular Spanish's way of saying 'this matters to me' without changing the action itself.