Why is “las” sometimes appended to Spanish words?

Question

Why are there some Spanish words like “mencionarlas” or “señalarlas”?

What does the …las at the end mean? Examples would be appreciated!

Answer 1

If you just want the translation: you can almost(?) always translate the ...las part with "them" - it refers to some other things (in the sentence, paragraph, or assumed to be known to the audience) with feminine grammatical gender (the masculine equivalent is ...los). For a single object ("it"), ...la and ...lo are used.

Here is an example on our own site:

En una investigación literaria que estoy haciendo me refiero a técnicas de caracterización de la novela en cuestión muchísimo, y quiero poder mencionarlas a veces

The bolded part means "I want to be able to mention them" and the "them" refers to "técnicas de caracterización" (characterization techniques) earlier in the sentence.

If you're interested in the linguistics behind this: they are called object pronouns. They are sometimes used on their own right before the verbs in a sentence, but after verbs in infinitive form you can (or sometimes must) append them.