Le maté - Le as a direct object?
I'm watching a show, and this girl repeatedly says "le maté" to mean "I killed him" or so I presume. Why wouldn't she say "Lo maté"? I read "le" as to him, as in "I killed to him" and lo as "him" as in "I killed him"? What is going on with this? Isn't him (lo) the direct object that (le) is taking the place of? 
3 Answers
Ok I figured it out. Le as a direct object: In some parts of Spain, le can substitute for lo as a direct object when it means "him" but not "it." Less commonly in some areas, les can substitute for los when referring to people. You can learn more about this phenomenon in the lesson on leísmo.
le is always indirect... are you sure you didnt hear them wrong... she should be using a direct object (lo/la)... direct objects are for answers who and what, indirect objects answer to who and for who
I am not really surprised, jeezzle, because I asked myself, how would your protagonist phrase the sentence if she were to use the person's name whom she has just killed. Wouldn't she say...¡Le maté a Ricardo! because one always uses that "a" and adds some level of "indirection" when the object of a verb is a person??
I noted in the link you included (thank you!) that
"there are a few verbs that are accompanied by indirect-object pronouns even though their English equivalents would use a direct object in the same way. One example is creer: No lo creo (I don't believe it), but no le creo (I don't believe him/her.)"
Well...I am not a grammarian and have only even just begun to concern myself with grammar as I have started learning Spanish...However, I think that, yes, the "it" in "I believe it" is the direct object, but surely it is not "he" ....that is "him" that I believe when I state that "I believe him", but rather the implied "what he said." In some sense, the person stands in an indirect relationship to the English word "believe" in a similar way as does the person in a Spanish sentence as the "indirect object" of "creer".
What do you think?
