Impersonal se, Passive voice with se, and Passive voice with ser

In English, you'll hear statements like "You shouldn't smoke in a hospital" "They say she is very pretty" "One never knows when he will turn up." These are "impersonal expressions". In other words, we don't really have anyone specific in mind when we say "They say..." or "One" or " You". We mean people in general. This is what we mean by "impersonal". se in impersonal expressions

Spanish has a slightly different format for expressing this Impersonal voice. Spanish adds the pronoun se in front of verbs to make general statements. Impersonal voice using se will use a 3 rd person singular verb form since the se can be replaced by uno ("one").

Ejemplos: How does one say "ice cream" in Italian? ¿Cómo se dice "helado" en italiano? You say (one says) "gelato". Se dice "gelato". How do you spell "Valencia"? ¿Cómo se escribe "Valencia"?

The Passive Voice in Spanish is normally formed by using se + the third person singular or plural conjugation of a verb, similar to what we did with the Impersonal se. In Spanish there is not a subject - identified or not! the passive voice with se

Los dependientes del almacén hablan ruso. (The department store clerks speak Russian.) Se habla ruso en el mercado. (Russian is spoken in the shopping center.) David escribe el libro en italiano. (David is writing the book in Italian.) Se escribe el libro en italiano. (The book is written in Italian.)

Mis amigos comieron la torta. ( My friends ate the cake.) Se comió la torta. (The cake was eaten.) Los choferes pagan las multas los lunes. (Drivers pay the fines on Mondays.) Se pagan las multas los lunes. (The fines are paid on Mondays.)

the passive voice with ser In the passive voice: the “thing done” or the person “done-to” becomes the subject of the verb and the “doer” becomes the agent (introduced by the word “by” in English or por in Spanish): Los dramas fueron escritos por ella. The plays were written by her. Juana fue vista por varias personas. Juana was seen by several people.

The passive voice is formed by using the verb ser plus the past participle of a verb. The past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject of the verb. In essence you are linking the subject and the past participle —as if it were an adjective— with the verb ser. The passive voice in Spanish is most frequently used in the preterit, although in theory it can occur in any tense, both in the indicative and in the subjunctive.

Más ejemplos: Los murales fueron pintados por Diego Rivera. Sus obras fueron exhibidas por el director del museo en el salón cerca de la entrada. La escultura fue tallada por un escultor famoso.