Breakdown of Se evalúa a las mujeres por su apariencia y su portafolio.
y
and
su
his/her/its/their/your (formal)
la mujer
the woman
por
for / by / through / in/during (part of the day)
se
(impersonal) one / passive marker
evaluar
to evaluate
la apariencia
appearance
el portafolio
portfolio
a
personal 'a' (marks a human direct object)
Questions & Answers about Se evalúa a las mujeres por su apariencia y su portafolio.
Why is the verb singular (evalúa) when the sentence is about plural women (las mujeres)?
Because we used the personal a before las mujeres, the women act as the direct object of the sentence, not the subject. In an impersonal se construction, there is no specific grammatical subject (it translates literally to something like 'one evaluates'), so the verb must default to the singular evalúa.
What would happen if we dropped the personal a and made the verb plural (se evalúan las mujeres)?
Dropping the a changes the grammar, making las mujeres the subject. This creates ambiguity, as it could be interpreted as 'the women evaluate themselves' or 'the women evaluate each other.' Using the impersonal se evalúa a... completely removes this ambiguity and guarantees we mean they are the ones receiving the evaluation from someone else.
Why do we use por instead of para when saying they are evaluated 'by' their appearance?
The English translation says 'The women are evaluated'. Can I use the literal Spanish passive voice here, like las mujeres son evaluadas?
Yes, las mujeres son evaluadas por su apariencia is grammatically correct. However, Spanish speakers use the true passive voice (using the verb ser) much less frequently than English speakers do. The impersonal se structure shown in this sentence is the much more natural and common way to express this idea in everyday Spanish.
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