I was expecting here "se puede" rather than "se pueden", as in the example below (pulled off the Internet, which may of course be wrong...):
"se puede comprar dolares"
How does this correlation (singular vs. plural) work between a reflexive construct and the object when there is a verb in between?
"¿En dónde se pueden comprar los boletos?"
Steven-W15
September 7, 2014
Dan-H24
September 7, 2014
Steven: Am I translating this right as, "where can they buy tickets"?
"se puede comprar dólares" would be "he (or she) buys dollars, no?
Isn't the third person reflexive pronoun se for both singular and plural?
Or am I completely missing the point of your question?
Since every one of my responses ends with a question mark, I question how useful my "answers" can be....!Lo siento!
Steven-W15
September 7, 2014
Your answers are useful, Dan, no worries. :-)
Your translations are good though I would probably put them in the abstract:
- Where can tickets be purchased?
- Where can dollars be purchased?
"Se" is indeed the same for both. My question is rather on the reflexive verb: why is it plural in one case (pueden) and singular (puede) in another when the object of both (los boletos, dólares) is plural?
My second question is:: Does it make a difference having a verb (comprar) separating the reflexive verb and the object? With the verb in between, I someone concluded that the reflexive verb would always be singular (in this case, "se puede"):
- se puede comprar los boletos
- se puede comprar dólares
Ava Dawn
September 7, 2014
This is my translation. The tickets can be bought where? or where can the tickets be bought? Maybe I am really far off here. I'll check with Diana later.
ricardo-rich
September 7, 2014
Hola amigos,
This is the incomplete passive voice, it isn't reflexive. Se habla español aquí, Spanish is spoken here, Se hablan español y francés aquí. I think that is why Steven put his translation in the "abstract". "They" say the grass is always greener, who is they? "You" turn left etc. The you and they are not known or specific.
Saludos,
Ricardo
Ava Dawn
September 7, 2014
Can you explain incomplete passive vs reflexive? Thanks, Aurora. Also how was Steven's translation abstract vs concrete?
ricardo-rich
September 7, 2014
Hola Aurora,
The examples I gave are using the passive voice: "Se habla español aquí". I was referring to Steven's use of "abstract" to describe his own translation. I think he was kind of intuiting the passive voice. Reflexive verbs can be found in the language and culture section and I'm sure that will explain them better than I could. Also I recall the passive voice is discussed, which is where I first encountered it.
Saludos,
Ricardo
ricardo-rich
September 7, 2014
Aurora,
An afterthought, I printed out the grammar books way back when I started and read through them several times. You might consider doing that, it makes it far easier to find topics.
Ricardo
ricardo-rich
September 7, 2014
Hola a todos,
Well, I'm correcting myself as I've found a couple of explanations that call the passive voice with "se" a reflexive construction but not in the sense of something one does to one self. I think I understood this better before my attempt to explain it. In any case, I think the sentence discussed is using the passive se in the manner described in the third link. Help! My brain is tired. I hope I haven't caused confusion and that Cristian will come to the rescue.
http://spanish.about.com/cs/verbs/a/passive_se.htm
http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/passive_voice_intro
http://www.spanishdict.com/topics/show/87
Saludos,
Ricardo
Ava Dawn
September 8, 2014
Thank you Ricardo. Essentially what I got from your links is this. In English, we use a lot of passive sentences like "The keys are lost" instead of an active sentence like "She lost the keys". It says that in Spanish, you want to use active sentences as much as you can. If you are not able to and have to use passive sentences, then you have to use "se" before the verb or even after. I am oversimplifying this comments and I need to study it some more.
Dan-H24
September 8, 2014
Ricardo, estas enlaces son muy informativo a mí. Frases como "se vende" me confundieron en el pasado. Tiene sentido ahora. ¡Gracias!
Dan
Ava Dawn
September 8, 2014
I am now in Lesson 15.2 with RS Platinum level. I check further on and in Lesson 16.5, the active and passive sentences are explained. They seem to explain it well. So instead of stopping my RS lessons and going to study all those links, I'll just be patient and wait. I know we are all in different levels and in different places. Plus I really enjoy garnering all the points. The classes (twice a week) at the senior center are slowly moving along. Learning the conversation transcripts seems to make sense to me right now.
Ava Dawn
September 8, 2014
En dónde se pueden comprar los boletos - plural ustedes
En dónde se puede comprar los boletos - singular usted
Diana said that boletos is the subject -plural and dolares is also plural, so there seems to be a discrepancy. If the subject is implied from pueden and puede, then to me it makes sense. Later I will try to learn more of the other nuances.
ricardo-rich
September 8, 2014
Hola a todos,
De nada amigos. Me alegro de que hayan sido útil para ustedes.
Saludos,
Ricardo
Ava Dawn
September 13, 2014
"Te pueden decir chica si eres baja, o flaca si eres delgada".
This is for Steven W15 or anyone else. Why is this sentence structure pueden instead of puede
Steven-W15
September 13, 2014
- You can say kid if you're short or skinny if you're thin
- You all can say kid if you're short or skinny if you're thin
Spanish tracks pretty close to English in this respect. You will also hear:
- Se puede decir chica si eres baja...
When it comes to "Write it!", I transpose all these in my head now and end up writing one instead of the other and end up failing the test miserably... :-)