ella le ayudará. (whats wrong w/this?)

Question

I told someone "Ella le ayudará." to say "She will help you." and he corrected me and said I should say "Ella te ayudara."

What's the difference? He didn't understand me until I told him what I was trying to say. I made the mistake of pronouncing Ella with an "L" instead of "Y".

Answer 1

Te is correct. You could use le if you put ud. at the end.

• at end? Where exactly would Ud go? - RachelC Sep 9, 2009

Answer 2

Ella lo ayudará a Ud.

Ella te ayudará a ti.

I would leave the le out altogether unless you added a direct object such as:

Ella le ayudará a Ud. con su tarea.

To answer you're original question, you are using an indirect object pronoun for a direct object. (disclaimer: regionally le can be used for lo as a direct object when the d.o. is a masculine person)....but I don't live in that region, so don't do it.

Answer 3

The difference I believe* is purely in the formality of the statement; you'd use le for formal and te for familiar. The not understanding you would've come from the pronounciation error ('ella' vs 'eya' in English), while the correction of "le" to "te" is inviting you to use familiar variations with him as opposed to the formal (like in English if you said "she will help you, Sir", and he replied, "please, call me Dave").

(* I am new to this myself; this is as I understand it so far)

Answer 4

I'm always disappointed when my Hispanic friends don't understand me because of my pronunciation. Even tho I said ELLA (with an "L") instead of EYA, I would think they should know what I'm trying to say.

I had a Costa Rican salesman here and he pronounced all words beginning with a "Y" as a "J". So "Yes" became "Jes" and "You" was pronounced "Ju". But I still knew what he was saying. I didn't correct him out of politeness but perhaps I should have? I noticed some people correct me, if they are friendly with me. But the ones who don't know me well, say nothing and either figure it out or don't understand.

So what should one do? Correct people or not? I'm thinking that perhaps what is polite here, may not be polite in other countries.

Rachel

Answer 5

'm always disappointed when my Hispanic friends don't understand me because of my pronunciation. Even tho I said ELLA (with an "L") instead of EYA, I would think they should know what I'm trying to say.

I am used to undestanding all kind of things, Rachel, as I teach children, but this is something I would not have understood.

Ella pronounced with en l could perfectly be understood and I am sure here this was the case, as a Name!

Ela and ella (eya) are completely different words in Spanish.

Ela

Nombre Femenino de origen Teutón.

La que es noble.

• Not sure what you are saying. But I will not make that mistake again. When I read "Ella" my first instinct is to say it the way we would in English. - RachelC Sep 10, 2009

Answer 6

Whether people are receptive to corrections is variant on a person-to-person basis rather than being regional. I'm the kind of person who's always looking to improve, recognise that mistakes happen and are not a sign of stupidity, but lack of exposure, and so am grateful for pointers... but many people, foolishly I believe, do not see it this way, and no matter how politely you make the correction, feel like you're saying you're better than them because you know something they don't and get irate. I go for "treat others how you like to be treat", and if they don't appreciate it, that's their loss. Don't let other peoples hangups get in the way of you doing what you think is right. You know to be more careful with your double-L's now; this is surely A Good Thing(tm)