The course I’m currently on presents “se me ocurrio” as “it occurred to me.” I’m having trouble understanding what the “se” is for? If I was generating this sentence on my own, I would say “me ocurrio.” I believe I’m missing something very basic here…
Hi!
Native spanish speaker here.
First of all, I want to specify that “se me ocurrió” means “it occurred to me” in the sense of “an idea ocurred to me”, not in the sense of “it happened to me”.
Se me ocurrió = (an idea) ocurred to me
Me ocurrió = It occurred (happened) to me
Now, what´s that “se”?
“me”, “te”, “se”, “nos”, “os” are pronouns that might indicate different things depending on the context. They can be direct object markers, indirect object markers, reflexive verb markers…
In this case, “se” is working as a support for a pronominal verb. A pronominal verb is a verb that requires a reflexive pronoun to express its own meaning.
Among the pronominal verbs, there are some which always require the pronoun (pure pronominal verbs), and others that have a different meaning depending in if goes with or without pronoun (not always pronominal verbs).
Let´s see some examples!
Pure pronominal verbs:
- Atrever(se) = to dare
- Quejar(se) = to complain
- Arrepentir(se) = to regret
Those verbs always go with the pronoun.
Verbs that are not always pronominal:
-
Ocurrir = to happen
-
Ocurrirse = to occur (an idea) *(this verb also requires a Indirect object mark, in your example it´s “me”)
-
Creer (en algo) = to believe (in something)
-
Creerse (algo) = to believe (something)
-
Ir = to go (somewhere)
-
Irse = to go away, to leave
I hope this helps! 
By the way, sorry for any mistakes in the comment, english is not my mother language!
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