Answer:
1. En Costa Rica <em>SE HABLA</em> español
2. En las librerías <em>SE VENDEN</em> libros y revistas
3. En los restaurantes <em>SE SIRVE</em> comida
4. En los consultorios <em>SE RECETA</em> medicina
5. En el campo <em>SE VIVE</em> muy bien.
Explanation:
Before answering our exercises we need to understand to what we refer when we talk about impersonal constructions.
<h2>WHAT IS AN IMPERSONAL CONSTRUCTION IN SPANISH? </h2>
We talk about impersonal constructions when the sentence that we produce doesn’t have a determined subject; this implies that we don’t have a “responsible” for the action that is expressed by the conjugated verb.
One way of producing impersonal sentences is by adding the syntactical particle “SE” instead of a substantive. For example:
- <u>SENTENCE WITH A SUBJECT:</u> Las chicas bailan todos los días en el parque (The girls dance everyday in the park)
- <u>IMPERSONAL SENTENCE</u> (without subject): SE baila todos los días en el parque (No-Subject dances everyday in the park).
<h2> Se + Verb conjugated in simple present form. </h2>
Now we have our answers:
1. En Costa Rica <em>SE HABLA</em> español
2. En las librerías <em>SE VENDEN</em> libros y revistas
3. En los restaurantes <em>SE SIRVE</em> comida
4. En los consultorios <em>SE RECETA</em> medicina
5. En el campo <em>SE VIVE</em> muy bien.
Notice how we don’t have a specified subject in any of these sentences and, related to their meaning, all of them can be understood as GENERALITIES or things that occur constantly.
