Impersonal “-se” in Portuguese

You probably think of “se” as the Portuguese equivalent of “if,” and rightly so:

Se eu pudesse… = If I could…

Also, reflexive verbs may come to your mind:

Ela magoou-se no joelho.
She hurt herself in the knee. 

Now, what you might be missing is “se” as an impersonalizing particle:

Vai-se muito à praia no Verão.
People go to the beach a lot in the summer.

See, that “vai” (ir) followed by “se” is not a reflexive verb. The fact that the verb is in the 3-person and followed by “se” makes the sentence impersonal, as in “people…”

Let’s dive in.

1. Generalizations

Here’s an example of a generalizing statement: 

(a) As pessoas bebem em demasia nos dias que correm.
People drink far too much these days.

The previous sentence doesn’t refer to anyone specifically: “people”…

Alternatively, we can make this kind of generalization by using the verb in the 3-person (“bebe”) followed by “-se”:

(b) Bebe-se em demasia nos dias que correm.

If we change the tense, the same principle applies; the only difference is that now our verb comes in the 3-person of the Past tense (P. Imperfeito in this case):

(a) Antigamente as pessoas bebiam em demasia.
(b) Antigamente, bebia-se em demansia.
In the old days, people drank too much.

2. Passive Voice

The impersonalizing agent “se” is also used in passive-voice constructions, which are impersonal by definition.

For instance, the sentence “As pequenas e médias empresas geram a maior parte da riqueza da economia” (“Small and medium-sized enterprises create most of the economy’s wealth”) can be rewritten into a passive-voice construction (hidden agent):