Breakdown of Se me olvidó lo que leí sobre la compensación.
leer
to read
que
that / than
me
to me / me (direct object)
la
the (feminine)
olvidar
to forget
lo
the ... thing (neuter article)
sobre
on / over / about (a topic)
se
(marker of an accidental/unintentional event)
la compensación
compensation
Questions & Answers about Se me olvidó lo que leí sobre la compensación.
Why does the sentence use lo que instead of just que or qué?
In this sentence, lo que translates to 'what' in the sense of 'the thing that' or 'that which.' You cannot use qué with an accent because it is not a direct or indirect question. You also cannot use just que because there is no specific noun right before it to refer back to (like 'the article that I read'). Instead, lo que acts as a neuter pronoun standing in for the abstract idea of whatever information you read.
Why is it se me olvidó instead of just saying olvidé?
Both mean 'I forgot,' but se me olvidó is an extremely common structure in Latin American Spanish. It uses the 'accidental se' construction, which shifts the blame. Literally, it translates closer to 'it forgot itself to me.' This makes forgetting sound like an innocent accident that happened to you, rather than an active mistake you made on purpose.
If I am the one who forgot, why is the verb olvidó in the third-person singular ('he/she/it forgot')?
In the accidental se structure, the person who forgets is just the indirect object (me). The actual grammatical subject doing the action is the thing that was forgotten. In this sentence, the subject is the entire phrase lo que leí sobre la compensación. Since that whole abstract idea counts as a single 'it,' the verb takes the singular 'it' form: olvidó.
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