Practice with Direct and Indirect Object pronouns -- for Beginners -- Week 3
Abuelita and I are temporarily settled in Antigua, Guatemala, with a modest internet connection. I will attempt to post an exercise every week or so while we are here.
This exercise is a little different, but still requires that you translate these English sentences to Spanish, the replace the direct objects (and indirect objects, if there are any) with pronouns.
Example:
I close the door A: Cierro la puerta. B: La cierro.
Remember not to read other peoples' posts until you have posted your own.
Exercise:
1: He is interested in the movie.
2: Mary's head hurts.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children.
Good luck. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me a private message.
18 Answers
A) A él le interesa la película B) A él le interesa.
A) A María le duele la cabeza. B) A María la duele.
A) Fernando lee el cuento a los niños. B) Fernando se lo lee.
¿alguien puede corregir mis oraciones?(incluyendo esto)
It looks like you have a good understanding. For the second question B) should be "A María le duele." 
I have the "rules" written down and think I know how to use the pronouns until I try simple sentences like these! Here's my "logic" - please correct as needed.
1: He is interested in the movie. Subject: He. Object (direct or indirect?): movie
La película se interesa. Sujeto: La película. Objeto: se
Se la interesa.
2: Mary's head hurts. Subject: head. Object: none
La cabeza de Maria se duele. Subjeto: cabeza. Objeto: Maria
Se la duele.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children. Subject: Fernando; Direct Object: story. Indirect object: children. Same subject and object in Spanish and English.
Él lee la cuenta a los niños.
Él les la lee. >> But you can't have both pronouns beginning with "L", so:
Él se la lee.
Wow! I like that you have the rules written. Really, these were not simple sentences. You did a good job, but there are a few errors.
The grammar in English is similar to the grammar in Spanish, but not identical. In English, if you have an indirect object, there has to be a direct object. In Spanish you don’t. (That’s a rule we threw in just to confuse English speakers 
.
La película le interesa. Le interesa. (no direct object)
On the second sentence, you correctly identified the subject and object (indirect. Again there is no direct object).
A María le duele la cabeza. Le duele. (or “Le duele la cabeza”)
You have the right parts of speech on the third. Don’t forget that you always need an IO pronoun before the verb if there’s an IO in the sentence. “Él les lee la cuenta a los niños. Él se la lee.” 
1: He is interested in the movie. Él está interesado en la película. Él está le la interesado..
2: Mary's head hurts. La cabeza de Mary duele. Su cabeza le la duele. La cabeza de Mary le la duele.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children Fernando lee el libro a los niños. Fernando se los lee.
Hi, Sanlee. Thanks for trying this exercise. It's a little challenging, but I think you're getting the idea.
A couple of pointers: We always have to have an indirect object pronoun before the verb if there's an indirect object in the sentence, even if the IO is stated elsewhere in the sentence. When we have le or les followed by la, la, las, los we change the le or les to se.
In the first sentence I was looking for the verb interesar. The way you translated the first part is correct. The second part should be “Él está interesado.” The way I would have translated it: “A él le interesa la película. Le interesa.” (There is no direct object in this sentence).
In the second sentence, “la cabeza” is the subject, “Mary” is the indirect object (again, no DO). You were close on the first part of your answer: “La cabeza de Mary le duele.” The second part could be simply “Le duele.”
The only thing wrong in the first part of the third sentence is the missing IO pronoun: “Fernando les lee el libro a los niños.” The DO is story (singular), so the second part should be “Fernando se lo lee.” 
1: He is interested in the movie. Está interesado en la película. Está la interesado.
2: Mary’s head hurts. La cabeza de Maria duele. La de Maria duele. (o La le duele???)
3: Fernando reads the story to the children. Fernando lee el cuento a los niños. Fernando lo les lee.
Diamond, for the first question, the first part is correct, but the second part needs some work: "Le está interesado." I would have done it differently: "Le interesa la película. Le interesa.
Remember that if there´s an indirect object, we have to have the indirect object pronoun before the verb. On the second question: "La cabeza de María le duele." Also, we cannot use "le la" or "la le" (the indirect object comes first). When we have le or les with lo, los, las, we change the le or les to se. In this case, we don't have a direct object, so it's just "Le duele."
On the third one, again we need the IO pronoun in both parts of the answer: "Fernando les lee el cuento a los niños. Fernando se lo lee."
This is a good start. Soon it will suddenly make sense.
1: He is interested in the movie. Está interesado en la película. Lo interesado.
2: Mary's head hurts. La cabeza de Mary está doliendo. (?? help??)
3: Fernando reads the story to the children. Fernando está leyendo la historia a unos niños. Ses lo leyendo.
AKgal, don’t be silly. We’re all here to learn. You didn’t butcher anything!!
The first question was kind of a trick (so was the second). With your translation, there is no DO or IO. The first part of your answer is correct. The second should be “Está interesado”. An alternate translation would be “Le interesa la película. Le interesa.” To native English speakers, this seems backwards, like saying the movie interests him. Interesar is a verb similar to “gustar”
Your translation of the second sentence is grammatically correct, but I don’t think anyone would say it that way. “A Mary, le duele la cabeza. Le duele.” Think of it as “Mary’s head hurts her.”
Your translation of the third sentence slightly alters the sense of the original. You changed it from “reads” to “is reading.” Try “Fernando les lee la historia a los niños” On the second part you got the correct DO pronoun, and you knew to change “les”, but there is no “ses”. “Le” and “les” both change to “se”. “Se lo lee.”
1: He is interested in the movie.
A él le interesa la pelicula. Le interesa.2: Mary's head hurts.
Le duele la cabeza de Mary. Le duele.
3: Fernando reads la historia to los niños.
Fernando les lee la historia a los niños. Se los lee.
Razz, you're off to a good start, but there are some things to remember. Whenever there's an indirect object in the sentence, there has to be an indirect object pronoun (le, les) before el verbo, even if the IO is stated elsewhere in the sentence. También the IO pronoun preceedes the DO. On the primero question, you chose the best verb for the sentence, but the pronouns need some help: "A él le interesa la película. Le interesa" (there is no direct object).
In the second sentence, the primero part is correct, but as in the primero sentence there is no DO, so it should be simply "Le duele."
In the third sentence, the IO is niños (plural), so "Fernando les lee la historia a los niños." The second part of your answer is correct.
Good job.
1: Se interesa en la pelicular. Se la interesa.
2: A María le duele la cabeza. Se la duele.
3: Fernando lee el cuento a los niños. Se lo lee.
Krama, this is a good job, but there was a trick. There is no direct object in the first two sentences. "Le interesa la película. Le interesa." The first part of the second answer is correct, but the second part doesn't need the DO pronoun. "Le duele."
On the third question, don't forget the indirect object pronoun before the verb (even though the indirect object noun is stated in the sentence). "Fernando les lee el cuento a los niños." The second part of that answer is also correct.
Good job!! 
A) A él le interesa la película B) A él se la interesa.
A) A María le duele la cabeza. B) A María se la duele.
A) Fernando lee el cuento a los niños. B) Fernando se lo lee.
¿alguien puede corregir mis oraciones?(incluyendo esto)
Cardebaun, the first two are a little tricky. It's easy to lose the subject (película and cabeza). 1B should be "A él se lo interesa", since the DO is "él".
Good job on the second and third. The second one, part B could be "Se la duele la cabeza"
1: El esta interesado en la película. Le lo interesado.
2: Duele la cabeza de María. La lo duele.
3: Fernando lee la historia a los niños. Fernando se les lee.
Aurelio, there are a couple of problems here. We can't use "le" and "lo" together. When those to pronouns appear together, we change the "le" to "se", so you wind up with "se lo", "se la", "se los" or "se las".
I was actually hoping you would go the other way with the first one: "La película le interesa", but your answer is fine for the first half. The second half should be "se lo interesa."
Remember, whenever you have an indirect object, you have to have the pronoun before the verb, even if the object is named. "A María le duele la cabeza." "Cabeza" is actually the subject (even though it isn't in English). The second part: "Le duele."
On number 3, again you need the pronoun on the first part: "Fernando les lee ..."
This is a good try, and really not too many errors.
1: He is interested in the movie. Es interesado en el cine. Lo es interesado.
2: Mary's head hurts. La cabeza de Mary duele. La duele. (Edit, guess this is for physical pain and herir is for emotional pain.)
3: Fernando reads the story to the children.
Fernando lee el cuento a los niños.
Fernando se lo lee.
Thanks, these are getting a little easier, I think!
Schemmn, these were a little more tricky than I intended.
The way you translated the first sentence doesn't work very well for using the pronouns. Your translation is correct, but I think most native Spanish speakers would say "Le interesa el cine." It's like the verb "gustar"; it requires an IO, even without a DO (and I can't explain why, sorry). 
The same is true with Mary's head. "Le duele."
In the third sentence, the DO and IO are pretty clear. Any time there's an IO in a sentence there has to be an IO pronoun before the verb. "Fernando les lee el cuento a los niños." The second part of this answer is correct.
Great job.
1: He is interested in the movie. La película le interesa a él. Se la Le interesa.
2: Mary's head hurts. La cabeza de Mary le duele a ella. Se la Le duele.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children. Fernando les lee el cuento a los niños. Fernando se la lo lee.
Fatcho, thanks for giving this a try. The first two sentences don't have a direct object, so you only need one pronoun before the verb. In English if we have an indirect object, we have to have a direct object. That's not true with Spanish, as you can see in these sentences.
In the third sentence, you used "la" as the DO pronoun, but the DO is "cuento", so you need a masculine DOP. You did have the right idea, and you seem to be aware that sometimes you have to change the IOP to "se". Good job!
1: He is interested in the movie.
A él le interesa la película.
A él se le interesa.
2: Mary's head hurts.
A Mary sle duele la cabeza.
A Mary se le duele.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children.
Fernandos les lee la cuenta a los niños.
Fernando se lela lee.
Thanks again , I find this really tricky for some reason. :(
Dear Calvo, I know I'm late in attempting this but I wanted to try again, I've now read all the other posts so don't worry about correcting mine, I can see that I still have trouble identifying what is what! - I'll have a bash at the next one. 
Sally, I made a couple of corrections for you, and this was tricky. The first two sentences have indirect objects without direct objects, so they require the "le" or "les". In the third one "niños"is the IO ("les") and "cuenta" is the DO ("la").
It wasn't really intended to be a trap, but I guess it came out that way. Thanks for giving it a try.
My internet has been up and down, but we moved today, so I'm hoping that things will allow me to post the next exercise tonight. 
1: He is interested in the movie.
A. Está interesado en la película.
Se la está interesado.
2: Mary's head hurts.
Maria le duele la cabesa.
Se la duele.
3: Fernando reads the story to the children.
Fernando lee el cuento a los niños
Se los lee.
Lucrecia, Thanks for taking part in this exercise. It was a little tricky.
Your translation of the first sentence doesn’t have an indirect object. The translation is correct. The second part of that answer should be simply “Está interesado.”
Your translation of the second sentence is also correct (there should be the personal “A” before María). This sentence also does not have a direct object so the second part of the answer should be “Le duele.”
The third sentence has both a DO and an IO. With the IO in the sentence, you have to place and IO pronoun before the verb (I know it’s an odd rule, but …). “Fernanado les lee el cuento a los niños.” On the second part, you switched the IO and DO. It should be “Se lo lee.”
He is interested in the movie = Se interesa en la película./Le se interesa.
Mary's head hurts. = Á Mary le duele la cabeza./Se la duele. Fernando reads the story to the children = Fernando lee el cuento a los niños./Les lee el cuento./Se lo lee.Joe, these were a little tricky. Thanks for answering.
The first two sentences don't have a direct object. "Le interesa la película./Le interesa." The first part of you response to the second is correct, but the second part should be simply "Le duele."
The third sentence has both a DO and IO. When there's an IO in the sentence, you need an IO pronoun before the verb: "Fernando les lee el cuento a los niños." The second part of your response to the third question is correct.
1) A él, le interesa la pelicula. Se la interesa.
2) A Maria, le duele la cabeza. Se la duele.
3) Fernando lee el cuento a los niños. Fernando se lo lee. o Fernando lee la historia a los niños. Fernando se la lee.
Great job Mar! The first two sentences don't have direct objects, so the second part of your answers don't need the DO pronouns. "Le interesa." and "Le duele." The first part in both is correct.
In the third sentence, you need the IO pronoun before the verb. "Fernando les lee ...". The second part of that answer is correct (for both nouns).
Keep up the good work.
