14
votes
Is the sentence "La pelota es roja. La niña juega con la" correct?
The correct sentence would be
La pelota es roja. La niña juega con ella.
The pronoun la is the clitic non-emphatic object pronoun. Third-person object pronouns are not used after prepositions like ...
- 39.4k
13
votes
Why is "a" needed in "Jugaba al tenis todos los días"?
According to the DLE, the verb jugar is used with that meaning followed by the a preposition:
intr. Entretenerse, divertirse tomando parte en uno de los juegos sometidos a reglas, medie o no en ...
- 77.4k
10
votes
Accepted
Does 'hacer alguien matar' mean to make somebody kill or to get sb killed?
It's a special meaning of hacer.
DRAE:
tr. Obligar a que se ejecute aquello que expresa un verbo en infinitivo o una cláusula introducida por que. Le hizo venir. Hizo que nos fuésemos.
...
- 10.7k
9
votes
Accepted
Using a él in a sentence with lo
It's not necessary. You can say:
Lo espero
But its not clear. What "Lo" means?
Is it a persorn?
Is it an object?
¿Te ha llegado el correo?
No, todavía lo espero.
Is it an action?
¿Vas ...
- 803
9
votes
Accepted
When to use an indirect object pronoun rather than a direct object pronoun?
Very generally speaking, a direct object completes or specifies the meaning of the verb, while an indirect object adds a destination, a goal, someone or something towards which the action is oriented. ...
- 39.4k
8
votes
Accepted
Can someone explain the construction of 'siempre lo arruina todo'?
It is redundant, but it's not wrong. It's also not compulsory to include it there. You could say, correctly:
Siempre arruina todo.
For all practical matters this means the same as with lo (see ...
- 39.4k
7
votes
Why "se lo" instead of "le lo"? / ¿Por qué debo escoger "se lo" en vez de "le lo"?
You were already answered the question when to use se lo but I understand your question is more why using se lo instead of the expected le lo?
Like a lot of people, I wrongly believed this ...
- 1,220
7
votes
Accepted
Using the "a" preposition with "echar de menos" and a personal object
Note that the "related example" may not be as related as you think. In the sentence
A lo que yo temo es a la maldita casualidad
the object ("casualidad") is not a person, and even so it carries an ...
- 77.4k
7
votes
Accepted
Eso lo decide la embajadora - redundant object direct pronoun "lo"
That redundant direct object "lo" is obligatory, because "eso" is well-defined.
El doblado del complemento directo antepuesto al verbo es obligatorio:
A mis hijos los veo sólo los ...
- 29.3k
6
votes
In "Ella les cocina a ustedes" why is "les" used when "ustedes" is used later on?
In a comment I've referred you to a question which answers this already. In short, if there's an indirect complement expressed as a full pronoun (in this case [a] ustedes), then the equivalent clitic (...
- 39.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Redundancia en el complemento directo
El fenómeno que está en juego aquí se llama dislocación a la izquierda y no es exclusivo del español: se da también en otras lenguas románicas. Podemos encontrar una explicación y algunos ejemplos en ...
- 1,947
6
votes
Why is "le" used instead of "la" in "su marido le pegó"?
There are verbs that can take the indirect object (le / les) without a direct one. For example:
Verbs of emotion and mental process: Le gustas mucho (He/She likes you a lot)
Other verbs in this ...
- 29.3k
6
votes
Proper "a" and gustar
In Spanish, verbs of liking and disliking only take an indirect object introduced by "a". This should not be confused with personal direct objects introduced by "a".
With verbs ...
- 29.3k
5
votes
Is the sentence "La pelota es roja. La niña juega con la" correct?
In English, the word la means the (feminine), so if you translate the phrase to English it would be like
The ball is red. The girl plays with the.
When translating "it" to Spanish you have to ...
5
votes
Why "se lo" instead of "le lo"? / ¿Por qué debo escoger "se lo" en vez de "le lo"?
The reason you see le transform in front of lo/la/los/las has to do with the history of Spanish. In Old Spanish, the combination le(s) + lo/a/os/as was written gelo/a/os/as (with the g pronounced as ...
- 30k
5
votes
Purpose of redundant pronoun in "Yo los escogí azules"
I would say they are definitely redundant, which is not to say that they are meaningless. It's hard to pinpoint it exactly but I think it has to do with definiteness.
... zapatos de gimnasia. ...
- 39.4k
5
votes
Accepted
busco problemas donde no *los* hay
The pronoun los is optional in this case. It's not really redundant because the impersonal form of haber normally takes a direct object. The form without the pronoun is elliptical: the pronoun is ...
- 39.4k
5
votes
How to use “les” in examples like this?
This is a case of an indirect object that appears twice in the sentence: once as a noun and once as a pronoun. In the example:
A los españoles les llevó años reconquistar la península ibérica
It ...
wimi♦
- 12.1k
5
votes
Accepted
Confusion surrounding encantar
"Encantar" works like "gustar", "complacer", "interesar"...
See this previous answer: Is "me gustas" ever correct, e.g. to say "I like you"?
- 2,192
4
votes
Why is "lo" required in "lo intento"?
They're two different cases.
1) In English, you can use "try" alone, but not in Spanish. "intentar" is a transitive verb that NEEDS a direct object to specify. You can think of it like "intentar"=[...
- 4,824
4
votes
Accepted
The use of "se le" in "A su muerte, pidió que **se le** enterrara en secreto."
"(que) se le enterrara en secreto" is, in fact, a passive clause, and is correctly translated as proposed: "(that) he be buried in secret."
Being passive and in the absence of any noun or noun phrase ...
- 29.3k
4
votes
Why is "lo" required in "lo intento"?
This is to complement the other answers, mainly.
First of all, lo siento is an idiomatic phrase with a special meaning. Think of it as a phrasal verb, sentirlo, which means "being sorry". The object ...
- 39.4k
4
votes
Accepted
When to use "ethical datives" in Spanish
According to Merriam Webster:
Definition of ETHICAL DATIVE
: a colloquial use of the dative of a pronoun for a person to whom it imputes a vague concern with the matter in question
Spanish has ...
- 851
4
votes
Direct object pronouns: "Lo" or "La"?
In that sentence, "it" is the subject, not the direct object. So the correct word would be "ella" (casa is femenine) but we don't say it (accademy says not to use any gender pronouns when talking ...
- 269
4
votes
Accepted
Indefinite 'uno/una' referring to the speaker - can someone explain?
The sentence means something like
If they see one hesitate, they immediately take advantage of one.
Let's see if I can explain it right. The speaker should talk about herself in the first person, ...
- 77.4k
4
votes
In "Ella les cocina a ustedes" why is "les" used when "ustedes" is used later on?
Viewed from English perspective 'les' could look redundant, however if we view it from Spanish perspective, it just sounds better if you say "Ella les cocina a ustedes" The word 'les' here makes ...
4
votes
Accepted
Use of direct objects with infinitives and simple future: "Voy a tirarlo" vs "Lo voy a tirar"
Both are acceptable, correct, and both are used in free variation by native speakers, i.e. the same speaker will use either in any context without any reason, randomly.
- 2,347
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