Talk about little accidents at home

You already know the verbs caerse, romper, olvidar, perder (A2, unit 2) and the pronouns me, te, le (A2, unit 11). Now let's put them together to say that something happened by accident.

English usually says "I dropped it" or "I broke it", with you as the one who did it. Spanish speakers talking about an accident almost always say it another way: the thing fell or broke "by itself", and the person is just the one it happened to. English does this too sometimes: "my phone died on me", "the glass broke on me". He roto el vaso — I broke the glass: it sounds as if you did it yourself, almost on purpose. Se me ha roto el vaso — the glass broke on me: I didn't mean to.

Pattern: se + who it happened to + verb + the thing.

The verb agrees with the thing, not with the person. One thing: se me ha caído el vaso — I dropped the glass. Several things: se me han caído los vasos — I dropped the glasses.

Which tense. If it just happened, use se me ha… (present perfect). If you're telling a story about the past, use the preterite: se me cayó, se me olvidó.

• ¡Ay! Se me ha caído el café. — Oops! I've dropped the coffee.
• Ayer se me cayó el móvil. — Yesterday I dropped my phone.
• Se me olvidaron las llaves en casa. — I forgot my keys at home.
• Se nos ha acabado la leche. — We've run out of milk.
• A Dani se le rompió la lámpara. — Dani broke the lamp by accident.

The most common verbs: caerse (to fall), romperse (to break), olvidarse (to slip your mind), perderse (to get lost), acabarse (to run out), quemarse (to burn).

Common mistakes:

• caer means "to fall", not "to drop": not ✗ he caído el vaso, but se me ha caído el vaso;
• the order is always se me, never ✗ me se;
• with several things, the verb is plural: not ✗ se me olvidó las llaves, but se me olvidaron las llaves.

You already know estuve a punto de caerme — I almost fell (B1, unit 8). In everyday speech, people say the same thing in a shorter way, with casi and por poco.

You need this to tell about trouble that almost happened: you almost fell, almost missed the bus, almost forgot.

Which verb form. After casi and por poco in this kind of story, Spanish uses the present tense (the normal form, not the subjunctive), even though it's all in the past. Words around it (ayer, esta mañana) and the story itself show that it happened earlier.

• Ayer casi me caigo en la escalera. — Yesterday I almost fell on the stairs.
• Por poco pierdo el autobús. — I almost missed the bus.
• Casi se me olvida tu cumpleaños. — I almost forgot your birthday.
• Por poco se me cae el jarrón. — I almost dropped the vase.

Compare with English. English uses the past here: "I almost fell." So you may be tempted to say casi me caí. That's not a mistake: people say that too. But in conversation in Spain the present is much more common. It makes the story feel alive, as if it's happening right in front of you. Go with the present and you can't go wrong.

Don't mix up the two casi. Before an action verb, casi means "almost (but it didn't happen)": casi llego tarde — I was almost late. Before other words, it's the usual "almost, nearly": casi siempre llego tarde — I'm almost always late; son casi las diez — it's almost ten o'clock.

Por poco before a verb is a fixed two-word phrase: "almost, nearly".