PASSIVE VOICE IN SPANISH … and avoiding or removing responsibility!

Guess what? This exists in English as well as in Spanish!

We have the ‘active voice’.
Ana bought the shoes.  Ana compró los zapatos.

And we also have the ‘passive voice’.

The shoes were bought by Ana. Los zapatos fueron comprados por Ana.

In Spanish we use SER + the participle (ado/ido of the verb) which is changed to agree with the noun.

We need a little bit of grammar to understand this.
The passive voice takes the emphasis away from the subject of the sentence. The subject is whoever ‘does’ the action.

Ana bought the shoes.  Ana compró los zapatos.
The subject is Ana – she is doing the action. In the active voice the emphasis is on Ana.

The shoes were bought by Ana. Los zapatos fueron comprados por Ana.

In the passive voice the emphasis is on the shoes.

The passive voice can be used to create distance.

In the active voice the focus is on the parents. The parents are the subject of the sentence.

Jorge’s parents raised him to be honest.  Los padres de Jorge lo criaron ser honesto.

In the passive voice the focus is on Jorge & his upbringing, distanced from his parents – in fact there’s no mention of them!

Jorge was raised to be honest. Jorge fue criado ser honesto.

We can mention the parents too, should we want to – but they still aren’t the focus.

Jorge was raised to be honest by his parents. Jorge fue criado ser honesto por sus padres.

There’s another way of forming the passive voice in Spanish. You’ve probably seen ‘Se Vende’ or ‘Se Alquila’ signs on buildings.  Or ‘Se habla inglés’ in shop windows.

We form this using SE & the 3^rd person (he / she / them) part of the verb. The verb is singular for a singular noun, & plural for a plural noun.

With this IMPERSONAL form of the passive voice, there is no subject – no-one is ‘doing’ the verb.

English is spoken (here) – Se habla inglés.

Havaianas are sold in Brazil – Se venden Havaianas en Brasil.

There’s a great way in Spanish by which we can distance ourselves even further from responsibility – by using the ‘impersonal’ or ‘pronominal’ SE.

For example, Manuel dropped his watch in the pool:

Manuel dejó caer su reloj en la piscina.
Manuel dropped his watch in the pool.

It’s clear that he dropped it. However, he wants to remove responsibility from himself when he admits it to his wife:

Se me cayó el reloj.
The watch fell from me.

No responsibility on Manuel’s part whatsoever!

Se nos acabó la cerveza.
The beer ‘finished itself’ to us. The ‘nos’ refers to us.

Se le perdieron las llaves a Pablo
The keys ‘lost themselves’ to Pablo. The ‘le’ refers to Pablo.