#Indirect objects

[spanishskulduggery]

Hello:

I feel so blessed to discover your blog. I need guidance understanding which verbs usually require the indirect pronouns " le & les" in the context outside of "gustar-like" verbs. I am pretty good to associate "decir" and "dar" with the pronouns but can't seem to remember any others.

In the context of indirect objects, usually you're talking about verbs that require a recipient

They aren't acted upon directly (usually) as that requires direct objects, but indirect objects often involve things like sending, giving, speaking, taking from, granting... things like that

For example escribir una carta "to write a letter" uses una carta as the direct object; escribir(le) una carta (a alguien) is then "to write a letter (to someone)"

The person who receives the action/result of the verb [writing a letter] is your indirect object there

I try to say indirect objects are often "to whom or for whom something is done"

Here are some verbs that usually take indirect objects (contextually)

dar(le) = to give to someone

dar(le) de comer = to give someone food, to feed someone

dar(le) la palabra = to give someone (your) word, to promise

regalar(le) = to give to someone as a gift, to gift someone

decir(le) = to say to someone contar(le) = to tell to someone / to recount to someone [like telling a story]

comprar(le) = to buy for someone

vender(le) = to sell to someone

escribir(le) = to write to someone

leer(le) = to read to someone

cantar(le) = to sing for/to someone

enseñar(le) = to teach someone / to show someone, to point out to someone

mostrar(le) = to show someone

cocinar(le) = to cook for someone

prometer(le) = to promise (to) someone

jurar(le) = to swear/make an oath to someone

proveer(le) = to provide to someone

hablar(le) = to talk to someone

enviar(le) = to send to someone mandar(le) = to send to someone

aconsejar(le) = to advise to someone

sugerir(le) = to suggest to someone

recomendar(le) = to recommend to someone

pedir(le) = to request of someone / to ask someone for a favor

exigir(le) = to make a demand of someone

otorgar(le) = to grant/bestow to someone

preparar(le) = to prepare/make for someone

saludar(le) = to greet someone, to say hello

dar(le) las gracias = to give thanks to someone agradecer(le) = to give thanks to someone

traer(le) = to bring to someone llevar(le) = to bring to someone

tirar(le) = to throw to someone

lanzar(le) = to throw at someone [also lanzar(le) un hechizo is like "to cast a spell on someone"]

disparar(le) = to shoot (at) someone

echar(le) = to throw to someone [also regionally used for other expressions] echar(le) de menos = to miss someone [Spain] echar(le) la culpa = to blame someone

extrañar(le) = to miss someone [Latin America; occasionally it means "to cause bewilderment" or "to surprise"]

caer(le) bien = to like someone caer(le) mal = to dislike someone [sort of like "to rub some

Again, many of these could be either direct or indirect object verbs; like "bringing something to someone" is a mix of both

Also! Many verbs implying emotions will use indirect objects; they're a bit similar to gustar type verbs in that sense since it's "to inspire (an emotion) in someone else":

sorprender(le) = to cause surprise

agradar(le) = to make someone happy, to gladden

entristecer(le) = to make someone sad, to sadden

But you can also use poner with this - le pone triste "it makes him/her sad" for example. Usually with emotions it's reflexive "to get sad" being ponerse triste, but you can sometimes see it with indirect objects like "it makes them sad"

This all depends on the situation, usually these verbs have a direct object and an indirect object... like dar las gracias "to give thanks" has las gracias as the direct object, but then who you're thanking is indirect

-

Also worth pointing out that depending on where you live, le might be used in certain situations that other countries wouldn't use it in

As an example ayudar "to help" often takes direct objects, but it could be indirect too... it's sort of like if you're saying "to help" vs. "to lend aid" since it's understood what you mean but certain places/countries will use direct objects or indirect objects

Very very similar is conocer "to know" or "to meet" - depending on where you are you might say es un placer conocerlo / es un placer conocerla "it's a pleasure to meet you"... OR es un placer conocerle "it's a pleasure to meet you"

This is assuming you're using polite usted

Informal tú would be te ayudo or es un placer conocerte and because the te is both a direct and indirect object it doesn't matter whether it's direct or indirect because it's the same te

This sort of linguistic debate of leísmo [the use of le when direct objects are people] is a common one in Spanish, but in general Spain tends to use le for direct objects that are people to afford them personhood... and most places in Latin America tend toward loísmo which uses traditional direct objects so as to not confuse the direct/indirect cases

But really this is academic and even Spanish-speakers aren't in total agreement, and it only applies to times when the direct object is a person [and again it is a DIRECT object]... this doesn't count for the verbs like those above which take indirect objects when something is to/for them

[You can also probably find more info if you look up verbos con el complemento indirecto or looking up el dativo which is linguistics code for indirect objects]

[itseghost]

went into this da2 playthrough pretty intent on trying to romance fenris in part bc ive been enthralled with him from a distance for so so long but ohhh my god. the emotion i experienced at "I would drown us in blood to keep you safe." and this is like 2nd time in the whole game you even get the chance to flirt with anders and the first time was immediately after he was forced to mercy kill his previous boyfriend. im unwell!

[lewiseb]

lando being a cunt is funnier when he's not being it about drivers i like

[mmikmmik2]

Since the Collector was able to trap King in a nightmare vision and then flat out said "my powers don't work on King" like five minutes later, the dreamscape can't be a Collector-specific power. It must be something else (maybe something other people could potentially learn like how Belos learned the draining spell) which the Collector supplemented with their puppet stuff. I think it's really fun that the Collector has a bunch of super overpowered inherent magic because of what they are and then on top of that he also knows a bunch of other kinds of magic that he can use to get around Titan immunity (at least in the case of a baby Titan who still lacks power and skill) or teach to other people. I love this overpowered little brat.

[fauvester]

being nice (or at least cordial) to people I dont like has come back and saved me so so so so so many times

[czolgosz]

i hope the people behind me in spanish class enjoyed the wasp & bivalve images i was scrolling through all hour

[lunanoc]

i thought i'd seen all the Bad Takes this fandom can generate atp but no 🫠

when i say people only like being in it bc they can play a giant themed dnd game, i mean it. otherwise there wouldn't be people seriously suggesting fan fiction (that's conveniently only written by themselves and their group of friends ofc) as an entry point into a fandom for newcomers who've never interacted with the source material in any way so they can get a solid grasp of the characters rather than idk. the source material ???

with all due respect, why would you ever use fan fiction and fanon perception as the basis of your own perception of characters and stories rather than the source material its derived from, knowing fanon is always going to be skewed and give you biased secondhand information. and why would you ever suggest it in the first place?

[sassmill]

God the true hack for learning languages is to have an office mate that was a classics major and is considering pursuing a master’s in linguistics because otherwise I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to understand the accusative case

[spanishskulduggery]

Hola, I wanted to ask for a clarification on something. I think I confused myself with reflexive verbs and gustar and verbs like it. Reflexive verbs use the "me/te/se/nos/os/se", but gustar uses "me/te/le..." etc. Because a reflexive verb is usually an action being done to yourself, we use se. But why don't we use se for gustar? Or le/les for reflexive verbs? I'm a little lost trying to understand why they're different.

What you're asking is the difference between a reflexive and an indirect object; and I'm going to start with a reflexive because I find them easier to understand

A reflexive is when the subject and object are the same - something one does to themselves (or in reciprocal/plural, something multiple people do to each other)

The basic example that I always like to use is lavar "to wash" - you can lavar la ropa "wash clothes", and lavar a alguien "to wash someone", and in this case the "clothes" and "someone" are considered direct objects [things that receive the action of the verb, as in, the clothes are what is getting washed etc]

A reflexive would be lavarse "to wash oneself"

You have lavarse las manos "to wash one's hands", literally "to wash oneself the hands" - the idea being that it is yourself, the hands are just part of you and obviously part of you (this is a thing that happens with many body parts where ownership is considered implied) - so you are the one washing and the one being washed. That's reflexive. And what is being washed is "the hands", which are the direct object here

Please note - there are other ways reflexives are used, and specifically times se shows up that aren't truly reflexive, and I don't want to confuse you or bog you down with more information than you need but just be aware there's the basic true "reflexive", and then also there are times when se shows up for seemingly no reason and it's just grammatical quirks of Spanish

-

An indirect object (also called dative in linguistics and languages with case systems, like German, Latin, Russian etc) is to mark who is the intended recipient of an action, who is benefiting, who something is done for

"to whom or for whom something is done"... that's why it's indirect

[Note: "who" is often a subject, "whom" is an object; if you take German you'll see this more but it's one of the carry-overs from German just in English as far as "whom" taking an extra letter]

You do something to something (directly), but it's for someone else... so that's why it's indirect

A common example I use is mandar la carta "to send a letter", the one "sending" is the subject, the "letter" is the object... but who is it going to?

le mando la carta "I am sending the letter to him/her"... where the "him/her" is receiving the action of sending the letter but not being acted upon directly... an indirect object

-

Here's where we get into the double-edged sword of gustar

On the one hand, super common absolutely everywhere, needs to be taught

On the other hand, it is often taught as "to like" which is basically true but becomes confusing for people later on when they come across the indirect objects. Teachers do their best to mitigate it but it's kinda unavoidable

gustar is NOT "to like" when used with indirect objects; it is "to be pleasant to" or "to be pleasing to"

When you say me gusta el libro "I like the book" what you're actually saying is "the book is pleasing to me"; and me gustan los libros "I like the books" is "the books are pleasing to me"

This is why gustar is showing up in 3rd person - they're the true "subject" and that's why gustar is often conjugated like this

This also extends to gustar-like verbs like fascinar, apetecer, interesar, importar, preocupar, and so on...

As in me sorprende is "it surprises me", literally "it evokes surprise in me"

...

To be clear here - a reflexive is when the subject and object are the same

Direct object and indirect object phrases are not phrased like that. Direct objects have one subject acting on something [mandar la carta for example], and indirect objects mention who benefits from something being acted upon [mandar(le) la carta (a alguien)]

A reflexive would have you doing the action and being the recipient, so in theory you could say me mando una carta "I send myself a letter"

Many verbs can be reflexive if they apply to the subject; if they apply to someone else, they're often direct or indirect objects

While not super common, me gusto can be used as "I like myself"

-

Also just to be clear about the object pronouns:

Direct objects: me, te, lo/la, los/las, nos, os

Indirect objects: me, te, le, les, nos, os

Reflexives: me, te, se, nos, os

For yo, tú, nosotros/nosotras, and vosotros/vosotras the objects are the exact same

Which means that ~in general but not always~ you don't have to worry too much about whether a sentence is technically direct or indirect

The big issue is 3rd person (+ usted/ustedes which conjugate like 3rd person) - whether it's going to be lo or le or se

In general though it will depend on the context of the sentence. As an example alegrar "to make someone happy" uses indirect objects, while alegrarse is "to become happy"

Whether you're saying le alegra "it makes them happy" or se alegra "he/she is happy/they are glad"

-

Also for more information:

Anatomy of Spanish: Direct Objects

Anatomy of Spanish: Indirect Objects

[dantaliones]

feeling insane about how illya has probably accidentally taken a drink from solo's glass of water once or twice on this fine morning how are yall

[seafleece]

i think there should be a cool normal way to simultaneously ask all of the friends from my hometown if they are also back for christmas

[leniisreallycool]

The absolute disdain Latin American Spanish teachers have for Spain Spanish is so funny. My TA was almost hostile when he said something like "Os is a Spain indirect object pronoun, I don't teach that unless one of you wants me to for whatever reason, it's weird and I don't like it" and then moved right along with the rest and no one brought it up again

[alashrafedu]

الأشياء المباشرة وغير المباشرة Direct And Indirect Objects

[czolgosz]

last week in english class the teacher asked What is the first thing people wrote on? and i said tablets and he laughed at me and said it was actually "scrolls" can you believe it

[lina-langs]

kleinstadt, kleinköpfe

Ein Kleinstadt mit kleinen Köpfe die Jungen mögen die Mädchen und die Mädchen mögen die Jungen. Ich liebe ihn und nicht sie.

[spanishskulduggery]

Hi, what's the difference between these sentences?

The first sentence is just the indirect object

The second is the indirect + direct object

-

First sentence reads like "I'm giving the book to my mother". Second one is "I'm giving it to my mother"

The indirect objects [me, te, le, les, nos, os] show who the recipient is; it's le for mi madre

The direct objects [me, te, lo/la, los/las, nos, os] show the actual object - which would be the libro. In the second sentence, lo takes the place of el libro so it's an "it"

-

When you combine indirect and direct objects, indirect goes first:

Me compras las flores. = You're buying me flowers. Me las compras. = You're buying me them. Te mando el paquete. = I'm sending you the package. Te lo mando. = I'm sending it to you.

...

When it's le/les + lo/la/los/las the indirect object [le/les] turns into se

This is because saying "les lo" or something would be super awkward, and in some places lelo/a means "silly" or "stupid"

So...

Le mando el paquete. = I'm sending him/her the package. Se lo mando. = I'm sending it to them. Le mando la carta. = I'm sending/him/her the letter. Se la mando. = I'm sending it to them.

And then le mando los paquetes -> se los mando. Or le mando las cartas -> se las mando

...The a (alguien) just shows the recipient, since se could refer to él, ella, usted, ellos, ellas, ustedes

If you want here's my post on How Indirect Objects Work in Spanish