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What is the role of 'le' in the sentence:

¿Cómo le va?

And the role of 'te' in '¿Cómo te va?'

What is the role of 'le' and 'te' in the sentences like:

¿Qué te pasa?

¿Qué le pasa?

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    Does this answer your question? "Leísmo de cortesía" and consistency – Diego Jan 29 '20 at 15:24
  • I think this post might answer your question better “Se” and “le” with “usted”, but always “te” with “tú” – Diego Jan 29 '20 at 15:27
  • If anyone really wants to close this as a duplicate, I guess "All about datives" would be better than the two that have been proposed so far. But I think we should leave this open because it's quite specific, and it's focused on greetings. – aparente001 Jan 29 '20 at 19:13
  • @Diego this is not a "leísmo de cortesía", because all the example sentences have an indirect object, not a direct object. You would not say * qué la pasa. I also do not think this is one of those datives in spanish.stackexchange.com/questions/26171/… (some may say "ethical dative" but I do not think it is that). I think this is a standard indirect object. – wimi♦ Jan 30 '20 at 12:16
  • @wimi Retracto mi voto para cerrar. Hice un par de sugerencias al OP, pero no puedo estar seguro de si alguna de ellas responde por completo a su pregunta o no. Estaría bien que clarificara si han ayudado o no, pero en cualquier caso, retracto mi voto y dejo que la comunidad provea de una respuesta adecuada (via post antiguo o nuevo) – Diego Jan 30 '20 at 16:24
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They are indirect objects. You can think of them like this:

  • ¿Cómo le/te va? How is life treating you?

  • ¿Qué le/te pasa? What's new with you?/What's wrong with you?/What's happening to you?

Le is formal, te is informal. That is, "le" corresponds to usted and te corresponds to tú.

Here is a chart showing subject pronouns and their corresponding indirect object pronouns:

Singular:
First person: yo, me
Second person informal: tú, te
Second person formal: usted, le
Third person: él/ella, le

Plural:
First person: nosotros, nos
Second person formal: ustedes, les
Second person informal: vosotros, os (in Spain)
Second person informal: ustedes, les (in Latin America)
Third person: ellos/ellas, les

An indirect object is something affected by the verb, but not directly acted on by the verb. For example, She told me a secret -- "me" is the indirect object.

Indirect objects in Spanish are similar to English, but not exactly the same. If you want to learn more about this topic, see All about datives, or: What's that funny "le" or "me" doing in there?.

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    Gracias por la colaboracion, @wimi. – aparente001 Jan 31 '20 at 16:45
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objeto indirecto , indirect object or complement in all of the cases,

  1. le, meaning a él, le va bien, mal, ... but a él.
  2. te, le, a ti, a él, le pasa, te pasa, te pasa algo, algo is the direct object or complement, te or le does not refer to a place, so there is not other option, it is indirect complement
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