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Indirect Object Pronouns. Remember, a direct object answers the question “what?” or “whom?”: Juan saw the house. Juan saw what ? Juan saw the house . “House” is the direct object. Juan saw whom ? Juan saw the girl . “Girl” is the direct object.
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Remember, a direct object answers the question “what?” or “whom?”: Juan saw the house. Juan saw what? Juan saw the house. “House” is the direct object. Juan saw whom? Juan saw the girl. “Girl” is the direct object. An indirect object answers the question “to or for whom?”: Juan sent her flowers. Juan sent whom/what? Juan sent her? Did he pack her up and send her? No—Juan sent flowers. “Flowers” is the direct object. Juan sent flowers to whom? To her. “Her” is the indirect object.
Remember what the direct object pronouns are? me nos te os lo, la los, las The indirect object pronouns are very similar: me nos te os le les And they go exactly where direct object pronouns go—before the conjugated verb: Juan le da las flores. – Juan gives her the flowers. Or on the end of an infinitive: Juan quiere darle las flores. – Juan wants to give her the flowers.
But what happens when you have both a direct object pronoun and an indirect object pronoun? Juan gives them (flowers) to me.— Juan me las da. You put the indirect object pronoun (me) first and then the direct object pronoun (las). Remember the order as ID (indirect obj./direct obj.). So how would you change Juan gives you the book. – Juan te da el libro. to Juan gives it to you. – Juan te lo da el libro.
One note about indirect objects: if you have an indirect object, you HAVE to have an indirect object pronoun: Juan le da flores. – Juan gives her flowers. Juan le da flores a Elena. – Juan gives Elena flowers. I know it looks like the second one is “Juan gives her Elena flowers,” but it’s a redundancy that’s required in Spanish. **Juan da flores a Elena** with no “le” in it is incorrect.
There’s one little complication: you can’t have le or les with lo, la, los, las: Juan gives her the book. – Juan le da el libro. Juan gives it to her. -- Juan ? lo da. You can’t have le beside the lo. So instead, you put se: Juan se lo da. So any time you’d have le or les with lo, la, lo, las, you have to change the le or les to se: Juan les da el coche. – Juan gives them the car. Juan da. -- Juan gives it to them. les el coche se lo
Let’s dramatize it a little bit more: Juan les dice la verdad. Juan Elisa le da los libros. Elisa les dice la verdad la se le da los libros los se
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