Breakdown of En la aduana, al turista se le olvidó el visado.
en
in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)
a
to
le
to him / to her / to you (formal) / him (direct object, male person)
se
himself / herself / themselves (reflexive)
Questions & Answers about En la aduana, al turista se le olvidó el visado.
Why is the verb olvidó in the third person if the tourist is the one who forgot the visa?
What exactly do the words se and le do in this sentence?
The word se is used here to show that the action was accidental or unintentional. The le is an indirect object pronoun that shows who was affected by this accident. Together, they take the blame away from the tourist by framing it as something that just happened to him.
If the sentence already says al turista, why do we also need the pronoun le?
Spanish frequently requires this kind of repetition. Whenever you explicitly name an indirect object using "a" plus a person (like al turista), you still have to include the indirect object pronoun (le) before the verb. The phrase al turista is just there to clarify exactly who le refers to.
Why does the sentence use el visado instead of su visado for "his visa"?
In Spanish, definite articles like el or la are often used instead of possessive adjectives like su when the owner is already obvious. Because the pronoun le already tells us the tourist is the one affected, saying el visado instead of su visado sounds much more natural.