Breakdown of Se me olvidó que la bebida tiene puras calorías.
tener
to have
que
that / than
me
to me / me (direct object)
olvidar
to forget
la bebida
the drink
se
(marker of an accidental/unintentional event)
puro
pure / nothing but / only
la caloría
calorie
Questions & Answers about Se me olvidó que la bebida tiene puras calorías.
How does puras mean "nothing but" here?
In Latin American Spanish, placing puro (or its variations) directly before a noun is a common way to express emphatic exclusivity. It means "only," "nothing but," or "entirely." Here, puras calorías emphasizes that the drink is entirely made of empty calories, with zero nutritional value.
Does puras have to match the noun it describes?
Why use Se me olvidó instead of just Olvidé?
Se me olvidó uses the "accidental se" construction, which takes the blame off the speaker by framing the event as something that just happened to them. While you could perfectly well say Olvidé (I forgot), Se me olvidó (It slipped my mind) is the most natural and frequent way to express accidentally forgetting something in daily conversation.
If I am the one who forgot, why is olvidó conjugated in the third-person singular?
In the accidental se structure, the thing that was forgotten acts as the grammatical subject, and the verb conjugates to match it. Here, the "thing" you forgot is the entire clause que la bebida tiene puras calorías. Because an entire clause or idea is treated as a singular "it," the verb takes the singular form olvidó.
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