5.7.2 The two passive voices of Spanish

In this chapter we will focus on the passive se, however, we do want to mention that there are two passive voices in Spanish.  One works very similarly to English:

Active voice: El mercante vende los libros

Passive voice: Los libros son vendidos

Again, if you really wanted to, you can even add “por el mercante” , although just as in English, if you feel that information is necessary to communicate your point, you should just use the active voice.

Passive se

We focus on the passive se in this chapter for several reasons:

1. The passive se is more common than the other passive voice, especially in speaking but in writing too.
2. The passive se is more common in speech than the passive voice in English.
3. The grammar is slightly different than English so it is worth a little more discussion.

What is the passive se then?

The passive se works in the same way as the other passive voice in Spanish and as the English passive voice.  We break the subject/agent relationship and add a se before the verb. The verb will always be in the third person, the only choice you will have to make is singular (él) or plural (ellos).  To continue with the same example, we will need the plural of the verb because libros is plural:

Se venden libros

Please note, there is NO way to add a “por” at the end.  Whoever is doing the talking will always be unimportant or unknown in this kind of sentence.

Here are examples from texts in this chapter:

Gioconda Belli, El país bajo mi piel: “Delante del estadio de donde mi madre salió hacia el hospital se alzaba entonces una estatua ecuestre de Anastasio Somoza García, el dictador que inició en Nicaragua, en 1937, la dinastía somocista.”

Mayra Santos-Febres, Los detalles: “En mi barrio se oyen gritos”

Homero Aridjis, Paraíso negro: “ten piedad de las estrellas animales y vegetales que se apagan en el aire, en el agua y en el suelo”