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“Se me cayó”: the plate fell, and it happened to me

CEFR B2 · part 27 minInstant feedback

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The rule, in three lines

For something that happened to you rather than something you did, Spanish builds se + the person it happened to + a verb that agrees with the THING: se me cayó el vaso, se me olvidaron las llaves, se nos ha roto la tele.

The usual slip. Making the verb agree with the person instead of the object: se me cayeron el vaso.

Why it catches you out. English puts you in charge of your own accidents — “I dropped it”, “I forgot the keys” — so you stay the subject and the verb follows you. Spanish takes you out of the driving seat: the thing becomes the grammatical subject and drags the verb with it, and you are left as the person it happened to. Nothing in your language prepares you to make a verb agree with a plate.