Nos molesta mucho que se le raye la porcelana.
It bothers us a lot that his porcelain gets scratched.
Breakdown of Nos molesta mucho que se le raye la porcelana.
mucho
many / a lot
que
that / than
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
nos
to us
molestar
to bother
se
(marker of an accidental/unintentional event)
la porcelana
the porcelain
rayar
to scratch
Questions & Answers about Nos molesta mucho que se le raye la porcelana.
Why is it se le raye instead of just saying he scratched it?
This uses the accidental se construction. By saying se le raye, we take the blame away from the person. Literally, it translates closer to "the porcelain gets scratched on him." The se shows the action was accidental or out of his control, and the indirect object pronoun le shows who was affected by the accident (in this case, "him").
Why is the verb rayar conjugated as raye instead of raya?
Raye is in the present subjunctive mood. We use the subjunctive here because the first part of the sentence, Nos molesta mucho que (It bothers us a lot that), expresses an emotion or personal reaction. Verbs and expressions of emotion always trigger the subjunctive in the clause that follows.
If "he" is the one affected, why doesn't the verb conjugate to match him?
In the accidental se construction, the item that gets broken, lost, or scratched becomes the grammatical subject of the sentence. Here, la porcelana is the subject. Since porcelana is singular, the verb rayar is conjugated in the singular third-person form (raye). If the subject were plural, like the plates, the verb would also be plural: se le rayen los platos.
The translation says "his porcelain," but I don't see the word su. Where does "his" come from?
In Spanish, when using the accidental se construction (and often when talking about body parts or clothing), we usually avoid possessive adjectives like su (his/her). Instead, the indirect object pronoun (le) already tells us who the item belongs to or who is affected by the accident. The sentence just says la porcelana (the porcelain), but the le tells us it is his.
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