Word
Se me descosió el bolsillo del pantalón ayer.
Meaning
My pants pocket came unstitched yesterday.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se me descosió el bolsillo del pantalón ayer.
el pantalón
the pants
del
from the / of the
el bolsillo
the pocket
me
to me / me (direct object)
Questions & Answers about Se me descosió el bolsillo del pantalón ayer.
Why do we say se me descosió here instead of just using a normal verb?
This is the "accidental se" structure. It's used to emphasize that an event was unexpected, involuntary, or an accident. The se indicates the action just sort of happened on its own, and the indirect object pronoun me shows who was affected by it—you are the "victim" of the rogue pocket!
Why is the verb descosió conjugated in the third-person singular?
In the accidental se construction, the person affected (me) is not the grammatical subject. The subject is the thing the accident happened to—in this case, el bolsillo (the pocket). Since el bolsillo is singular, the verb takes the singular form descosió. If both pockets had come unstitched, it would be se me descosieron los bolsillos.
English uses the plural "pants". Why does this sentence use the singular pantalón?