Accidental events (se me, se te...)

Accidental and involuntary events

In English, when you drop a glass or shrink a sweater, you usually say "I dropped the glass" or "I shrank the sweater." In Spanish, phrasing it this way sounds like you did it on purpose!

To express that an event was an accident or out of your control, Spanish uses a specific formula:

se + indirect object pronoun + verb

Here is how each part works together:

• se: Signals that the event was unplanned (often called the "accidental se").
• indirect object pronoun: Uses me, te, le, nos, or les to indicate who was affected by the accident.
• verb: Conjugated to match the thing involved in the accident, not the person. Because of this, the verb is almost always in the third-person singular or plural.

Notice how the literal translation of these sentences is closer to "the shirt shrank itself to me" or "the sweater shrank itself to you."

This structure is extremely common for recounting everyday mishaps, like appliances breaking down or things getting ruined.

When you are talking about dropping, knocking over, splashing, or damaging something, you will rely heavily on this structure. In the English translations, you will often see "I dropped" or "He knocked over," but remember that Spanish avoids placing direct blame for the accident.