Gramática: The Impersonal and Passive "Se" in Spanish

In English, you'll hear statements like

"You shouldn't smoke in a hospital"
"They say she is very pretty"
"One never knows when he will turn up."

These are "impersonal expressions". In other words, we don't really have anyone specific in mind when we say "They say..." or "One" or "You". We mean people in general. This is what we mean by "impersonal".

Spanish has a slightly different format for expressing this Impersonal voice. Spanish adds the pronoun se in front of verbs to make general statements. Impersonal voice using se will use a singular verb since these can be replaced by uno ("one").

Here are some examples:

How does one say ice cream in Italian? ¿Cómo se dice helado en italiano? You say, one says, gelato. Se dice gelato. How do you spell Valencia? ¿Cómo se escrive Valencia?

Notice that the Plural Impersonal (unknown "they") does not use the see:

They say that vegetarian pizza is healthy. Dicen que la pizza vegetarians es saludable. They open the stores at 9 a.m. Abren las tiendas a las nueve de la mañana.

The "passive se" is what we call in English "the passive voice." An active voice is when you have a subject doing something with an active verb. In English, a passive voice has an object having something done to it with or without an identified subject.

The passive voice in English uses a form of "to be" with a past participle.

Let's look at some examples in English:

Examples in English of active and passive voice sentence construction

The Passive Voice in Spanish is normally formed by using se + the third person singular or plural conjugation of a verb, similar to what we did with the Impersonal se. In Spanish there is not a subject - identified or not!

Let's look at some examples in Spanish and English:

Examples in first English and then Spanish active and passive sentence construction

The impersonal voice is used to make a generalization in Spanish such as, "Spanish is spoken here" or, "Coffee is served here." There are presentations below that describe and give you a visual of how these kinds of statements are constructed. Take notes as you view the material as you will be responsible for the content. Be sure your speakers are turned up.

Passive Voice

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How to Use Impersonal Se Passive Se in Spanish

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Impersonal Se Passive Se in Spanish, Part One

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Impersonal Se Passive Se in Spanish, Part Two

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Impersonal Se Passive Se in Spanish, Part Three

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Impersonal and Passive Se Review Activities

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