Another day, another example of that tricky lil’
se.
Looks like I'm a poet, and I sure do know it, jiji.
Anyway…
This isn’t really an
accidental se in the classic sense of
“oops, I forgot”.
Here, the
se helps give the feeling that the idea
came to you or
occurred to you.
So, this chunk just means:
👉
it occurred to me / I thought of + infinitive
But it sounds way less formal in Spanish than it does in English.
Pinky promise.
💡 There’s also
no se me ocurrió or
no se me había ocurrido when something hasn't crossed your mind.
And if you wanna say that
you thought of something, you can use the chunk
se me ocurrió algo.
🚦 Just as with
se me olvidó, you can think of this structure like a traffic light:
🔴
se = the red light =
NEVER CHANGES
🟢
me / te / le / nos / les = the green light = changes depending on
WHO THE THOUGHT OCCURRED TO
🟡
ocurrió / ocurrieron = the yellow light = changes depending on
HOW MANY IDEAS/THINGS OCCURRED TO YOU