When Nobody Says Who Did It

By Sigrid Lee

When traveling in Italy and trying out your Italian, someone might ask you where you're from: Di dove sei? When you answer, they might then say something like:

Sento dall'accento che non sei di qua ( I hear from your accent that you're not from here).

But it is much more common to hear either of these comments:

Si sente (one can hear).

Si sente che non sei di qua (one can hear that you aren't from here).

The person is left out entirely — no personal pronoun, no first-person conjugation. It's a wonderful Italian way to be vague. This is the si impersonale at its most conversational. It's called impersonale (impersonal) because the person, the agent, the subject, is left out by design. The subject is either not necessary, or it's omitted to be vague or universal.

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Here are some authentic examples from Yabla videos. See if you can spot the pattern.

In the following example, at the Milan conservatory, Matteo is playing violin for the orchestra conductor.

E va bene, va bene, va bene, si sente che sei bravo tecnicamente.

Well all right, all right, all right, one can hear that you are good technically.

Captions 39-40, La compagnia del cigno S1 EP1 - Part 6
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The orchestra conductor is not the only one who can hear that Matteo is gifted. Anybody could hear that.

In the same vein, in this next example, the speaker uses the impersonal si with the verb vedere to mean, "it is clear to see."

Guarda che si vede quando ti piace una.

Look, one can tell when you like a girl.

Caption 54, JAMS S1 EP5 - Part 3
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The previous examples are wonderful, because we're witnessing a very natural way to say:

You can tell...

It's obvious...

It's clear...

Anybody can see/hear...

Everyone knows...

And here is another expression we hear all the time: You never know! Non si sa mai! Just as we use "you" to refer to everyone or anyone in English, the impersonal si does this in Italian. This expression is one to have in your toolbox, assolutamente!

Gli abbiamo sequestrato anche la daga. Era finta, ma non si sa mai.

We also confiscated his dagger. It was fake, but you never know.

Captions 95-96, Provaci ancora prof! S3EP1 - Due americane a Roma - Part 22
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In all these examples, nobody specific needs to be identified, which is the point of the impersonal si.

We can use the impersonal si in compound tenses, too, where there is an auxiliary verb and a past participle. Here's what is important to notice and remember.

➡️ When an impersonal construction moves into a compound tense, such as the passato prossimo, Italian uses essere as the auxiliary verb.

Simple tense	Compound tense
Si sente che...	Si è sentito che...
Si vede che...	Si è visto che...
Si parla di...	Si è parlato di...
Si pensa che...	Si è pensato che...

Notice the auxiliary verb in these examples. It's a form of essere (to be), not avere (to have).

E poi non si è mai sentito di un funerale a meno di ventiquattrore dal decesso.

And then, no one has ever heard of having a funeral less than twenty-four hours after a death.

Caption 9, Provaci ancora prof! S1E2 - Un amore pericoloso - Part 6
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Allora, i fiori sono per la Rubino, e siccome non si è mai visto che il Manara mandi dei fiori ad una donna, evidentemente quelli li ha mandati qualcun altro.

So, the flowers are for Rubino, and since nobody has ever seen Manara send flowers to a woman, evidently, someone else sent those.

Captions 18-20, Il Commissario Manara S1EP8 - Morte di un buttero - Part 5
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These next two examples are from documentaries. It's common to find the impersonal si in this kind of speech, so when you watch Meraviglie, stay on the lookout.

Ma chi erano gli Etruschi? A lungo si è pensato che provenissero dal Mediterraneo orientale.

But who were the Etruscans? For a long time, people thought that they came from the eastern Mediterranean.

Captions 20-21, Meraviglie EP. 6 - Part 2
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Otto pareti; è un ottagono e si è molto detto, si è parlato tanto di questa simmetria di Castel del Monte.

Eight walls: It's an octagon and much has been said... we've spoken at length about this symmetry of Castel del Monte.

Captions 12-14, Meraviglie EP. 2 - Part 10
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The next 2 examples add a little twist, in that the tense is not the passato prossimo, but the trapassato prossimo, or the past perfect, in terms of its construction. The only difference is that now, the auxiliary verb essere (to be) is in the past tense.

Il signor Spada e la moglie danese pare che non andassero per niente d'accordo, tanto che si era parlato di separazione.

Mister Spada and his Danish wife, it seems, weren't getting along at all, so much so that they had talked about a separation/a separation had been talked about.

Captions 20-21, Il Commissario Manara S1EP11 - Beato tra le donne - Part 5
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Con il dottor Martini, si era pensato di introdurre un servizio di assistenza domiciliare per gli anziani,

With Doctor Martini, we had thought of introducing a service of home care for the elderly,

Captions 45-46, Un medico in famiglia Stagione 3 S3 EP1: Ciao famiglia - Part 4
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Translation note: Notice that in all these examples, no speaker or actor is identified. The subject has not been specified. Since English doesn't have an exact equivalent of the impersonal si, these constructions can be tricky to translate. We might add a subject, but it's more of a placeholder or an approximation. If you translate from English back into Italian, it might not work at all.

When we can't really determine who spoke, who thought, who said, who saw, who heard, etc., but we can determine what was thought, said, seen, heard, etc., it's time to look for the impersonal si.

You don't need to memorize a complicated rule. Just notice the pattern:

In compound tenses, the impersonal si uses essere (to be) not avere (to have).

A couple of parting thoughts:

All the past participles in our examples remain singular and masculine (parlato, pensato, sentito, visto). In a future lesson, we'll see what happens when a direct object enters the picture.

It's not always easy to pin down what kind of si we are dealing with in any given sentence, as there are so many uses of this particle, but the important thing is to know how it should sound. Once you start recognizing the patterns, it can even be fun to figure out exactly what kind of si we're talking about.

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