How do you say “I forgot” in Spanish?

Sometimes, you just have to confess that you don’t remember the answer or that you forgot an important appointment. It’s always better to own up sooner than to let the issue get worse!

In Spanish, there are a few different ways that you can say “I forgot”. Here are some of the most common ways:

• Me olvidé
• Olvidé
• Se me olvidó
• Se me han olvidado

Olvidarse is a reflexive verb. This can sometimes be counterintuitive for a native English speaker to grasp. The conjugation, “me olvidé”, seems to indicate “I forgot myself”, but that’s not quite right. The one doing the forgetting is the subject and the forgotten thing is the object. Think about it this way: If you forget to bring money, you could say EITHER:

• Me olvidé de traer el dinero (I forgot to bring the money)
• Se me olvidó el dinero. (The money was forgotten (by me)

This puts a greater emphasis on the thing that was forgotten, rather than your role in forgetting. This usage of the passive voice has a connotation that you didn’t forget something purposefully or it was not your fault that you forgot. Maybe something else surprising or higher priority distracted you at a critical moment.

Let’s look at this another way. If you forgot to bring the cake, and I really wanted to emphasize that I blame you for it, I would say: “Tú olvidaste traer el pastel.” (You forgot to bring the cake). If you brought a lot of things, but you just forgot the cake, I might not blame you as much. I might just say “Se te olvidó el pastel.” (The cake was forgotten).

Here is an example of how to say “forget” in the future tense in Spanish:
Nunca olvidaré el tiempo que pasamos juntos. (I will never forget the time we spent together.)

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How to tell time in Spanish
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Ahora in Spanish
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