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Re:Almost All Research on the Mind Is in English. That’s a P... by tolsof on Friday July 21, 2023 @12:14PM (#36815629)
> In English, it is typical to give an “agentive” description, such as “Sofia broke the glass,” even if it was an accident. But in Spanish, the particle se is typically used, and this changes the focus of the sentence; the description of the same event in Spanish would often be formed as: “The glass broke itself.”

Meh. It depends. I don't think I would say "Se rompio el vaso" ("The glass broke itself") if I saw that Sofia broke it (I would say instead "Sofia rompio el vaso", just like in English). But if I don't know who broke the glass, then yeah I probably would say "Se rompio el vaso" (or just "The glass is broken", "El vaso está roto").

Edit: But, if I don't really want to point at Sofia while still saying that the glass is now broken, then I may use the "se" to lighten the matter. But I guess in English one can do the same thing ("Things get broken, people. Nothing to see here")

Re:Almost All Research on the Mind Is in English. That’s a P... by dkjaudyeqooe on Friday July 21, 2023 @12:39PM (#36816020)
In reality, in the case of an accident in polite company, most people would just say "the glass broke" since who broke it is irrelevant.

In a supermarket where I dropped a jar of pasta sauce, I said "the jar broke". Me breaking it was not important, since I wasn't going to pay for it.

Re:Almost All Research on the Mind Is in English. That’s a P... by stubybubs on Friday July 21, 2023 @12:46PM (#36816159)
I took some Spanish and was taught the "se" form. Is it maybe a "traditional" Spanish vs common usage which has picked up on English sentence structure? A question for parents or grandparents I guess.
Re:Almost All Research on the Mind Is in English. That’s a P... by igsomething on Friday July 21, 2023 @12:59PM (#36816358)
You could also say "Se le rompio el vaso", which means she broke the glass but it was not her fault.