Action and event
What does someone do, or what happens?
Meaning
An action or event tells us what someone does or what happens. It may be deliberate, like opening a door, or happen without anyone choosing it, like a glass falling. Languages usually use verbs for this, sometimes with endings or helper words, but some do not mark time or person on the verb. Unlike State and existence, this block centers on something happening rather than something simply being a certain way.
How to spot it
Find the part that says what someone does or what happens, including events with no deliberate doer.
In your native language
English normally uses a verb to express an action or event. The verb form and helper verbs can show its time and whether it is in progress. Events without a deliberate doer also use verbs, such as fall, arrive, or melt.
Ben cooks dinner every evening.
Cooks names a regular action; the -s ending matches Ben.
The snow is melting.
Is melting shows a change in progress, without a deliberate doer.
The bus arrived late.
Arrived names an event and places it in the past.
In your learning language
Spanish uses verbs for deliberate actions and for events that happen without anyone choosing them. Verb forms show person, singular or plural, and distinctions of time and how an event is presented. Some verbs also use short pronouns as part of their usual form, as in caerse.
Los niños juegan en el patio.
The children are playing in the courtyard.
Juegan is the plural present form of jugar.
Una taza se cayó de la mesa.
A cup fell off the table.
Se cayó describes a fall, not a deliberate action.
Learners whose language keeps the verb stem unchanged may learn Spanish endings but overlook changes such as jugar becoming juega. Learners whose language has no comparable short verb pronouns may leave out se or assume it always means doing something to oneself.