Rocket Spanish Community

There is a reggaetone song called Pobre Diabla by Don Omar, which has recently bee remade as a salsa song by Michael Stewart.

Part of the chorus goes:

Pobre Diabla,
se dice que se te ha visto por la calle vagando
llorando por un hombre que no vale un centavo.

It is the second sentence that I'm having trouble understanding from a grammatical point.

When I asked mi prometida whether or not I was pronouncing the words correctly, she affirmed that I was.

It occurred to me this morning, that Puertoriqueños are notorious for dropping off the "s" at the ends of words, and therefore the line may be:

se dice que se te has visto.

In either case, what I do not understand is the function of "se" in the phrase.

The meaning of se te ha/has visto is supposed to be "you have been seen" or "they have seen you" wandering the streets.

If I wanted to say "Carlos has seen you," I would say, "Carlos te ha visto," and not, "Carlos se te ha visto."

If I haven't thoroughly confused you all, can anyone provide any clarity?

For whatever reason, this is really bothering me.

Muchas gracias.

Okay, mi prometida couldn't explain the grammar question so I had her ask her friend who said, in a nutshell:



1) Don't try to grammatically analyze a reggaetone song!

2) The line, in proper grammar should be "Se dice que te han visto por la calle vagando."

3) The "se" used in the song is just filler, grammatically incorrect, to help the flow of the song.

taalibeen wrote:It occurred to me this morning, that Puertoriqueños are notorious for dropping off the "s" at the ends of words, and therefore the line may be:

se dice que se te has visto.

In either case, what I do not understand is the function of "se" in the phrase.

The meaning of se te ha/has visto is supposed to be "you have been seen" or "they have seen you" wandering the streets.

Hola taalibeen. I'm not sure, but I think that the "se" is there because the construction is passive (just as in se dice or se puede or se habla). If that's the case, se te ha visto makes sense (and se te has visto would not). It means "one has seen you" or "they have seen you" or "you've been seen."
The book Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses gives as an example Se ha escrito este libro para los enamorados de los gatos - They've written this book for cat lovers (one could also say "this book has been written for cat lovers"). I think the principle is the same. Instead of "este libro" as the direct object, your sentence has "te".

If I'm wrong, I hope someone will correct me.

taalibeen wrote:2) The line, in proper grammar should be "Se dice que te han visto por la calle vagando."

3) The "se" used in the song is just filler, grammatically incorrect, to help the flow of the song.

Jeez, I don't know what I'm doing jumping into a conversation about Spanish grammar when I know so little, but, armed with my trusty Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses, here I go!

I think your point #2 may be incorrect. According to my trusty book, in this kind of passive construction, when the object is singular, the verb is conjugated in the singular, and when the object is plural, the verb conjugation is plural. They give the following examples:
Se construye la casa - The house is built
Se construyen las casas - The houses are built

Since the object in your sentence, te, is singular, the verb should be singular (ha, not han).

I think your point #3 is also wrong. The "se" is needed because the construction is passive and uses se.

See Dorothy Devney Richmond, Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses, for more info. I've found it a very helpful book.

Mi prometida found this at (http://inst.sfcc.edu/~hfl/FORLANG/Resou ... 21FXPR.DOC) -->

“Se” for unplanned events p.284-5 (SE+ indirect pronoun [me,te,le,nos, os,les]+verb [3rd person]+subject)
• “Se” is also used to form statements that describe accidental events.
Ex: Se me cayó la pluma, se me rompieron los platos, se le rompieron las gafas.
i.o.p. v subj i.o.p v subj. i.o.p v subject