The Spanish Pronoun SE - Part Three

Now that we've jumped head first into this topic, let's see if we can finish it off. Now, that we've gone over with the different circumstances in which this controversial pronoun appears our students we, as teachers, must now review for understanding. This is also a moment that can create a lot of unnecessary stress on the part of our students.

We must remember (this is an idea of mine that constantly runs through my mind) that our students (not including those teachers taking a refresher course or university students, both of whom are interested in the purely grammatical aspect and need to have clear understandings of language structures), or at least a majority of them, want to and need to speak Spanish correctly even though they will not be able to explain the grammatical intricacies of SE in an academically orthodox manner.

Abusing linguistic terminology is a danger in the Spanish language classroom. We shouldn't forget that a bank teller from England who is studying Spanish isn't interested in knowing how to explain what is a dative case or the relative clause. What they do want to know is that they have to use LE or LES so as not to repeat certain information or that in Spanish we need to use QUE in some instances while in their language it isn’t always necessary.

SE in Spanish - Thirteen Examples

Finding an acceptable explanation that can eliminate the majority of doubts and limit the added difficulties that arise when teaching SE is the object of the following exercise I will share with you. Keep in mind that we are directing this exercise to students at the B1 and B2 intermediate levels.

1. Ayer compré un regalo para mi novio. Se lo di durante la cena y le encantó.
2. Los musulmanes se lavan antes de entrar en la mezquita.
3. Los chimpancés del zoo están mucho tiempo quitándose parásitos del pelo.
4. Ayer por la tarde hacía mucho viento. Estábamos comiendo y de pronto la ventana se abrió y nos dio un susto terrible.
5. Merche parece una mujer muy segura, pero cuando tiene que hablar en público se pone como un flan.
6. Mi abuelo era un hombre a la antigua, siempre se afeitaba en la barbería, nunca lo hacía en casa.
7. Estaban a mitad de camino a la playa cuando el coche se rompió y tuvieron que hacer noche en un pueblecito mientras lo reparaban.
8. Lamento no haberte llamado como te prometí, se me olvidó completamente.
9. En ese bar me han dicho que se come muy bien.
10. Ayer vi un cartel de “se vende” en el balcón de tu casa. ¿Es que vais a mudaros?
11. Cuando Alejandro llegó a la meta, después de terminar la maratón, se bebió casi dos litros de agua del tirón.
12. Terminó de hacer su trabajo y se fue sin despedirse de nadie en la oficina.
13. Me saca de quicio ese tipo de gente que siempre se queja por todo y nunca está satisfecha con nada.

In these thirteen examples our favorite pronoun appears in bold. Apart from the first sentence, in which the pronoun SE takes the properties of the noun LE, we can show our students how SE has a reflexive value. We should also specify that this reflexive characteristic indicates that the subject and object of an action (of a verb) are one and the same. Taking a look at the examples in order, something interesting comes to mind that will help us understand the uses of SE: the reflexive characteristic, in this series of examples, diminishes as we go down. In other words, the identification of the subject and object blurs and becomes less obvious finally becoming an extension of the verb that ends up modifying itself (se fue vs. fue). These sentences also make reference to an unidentified subject as happens in the medium voice, which highlights involuntary action and, above all, the impersonal nature it conveys.

Now that we have gone through the steps of presenting, explaining and reviewing the pronoun SE in our class—without delving too deeply into the grammar—hopefully we have taught this particularly difficult construction in a way that is more pragmatic and holistic.