Este partido lo vamos a ganar

Question

Hi,

This question came up as I was searching for soccer (football) terms, because of course it is world cup time. There was an old post discussing a soccer game and the title was "Este partido lo vamos a ganar". This replicates a pattern that I've seen a number of times but definitely don't understand. The "lo" seems unneccesary in this instance - why is it included? Translated to english, the phrase is (I think) "This game we are going to win it", or "We are going to win this game". To a native english speaker, it seems more natural to say "Este partido vamos a ganar" or even "Vamos a ganar este partido".

So:

• Is it correct to say "Vamos a ganar este partido"? If not, why does the subject go first?

• Why is the "lo" there? I learned that the indirect object pronoun is always included even if the IO is explicitly stated, but I did not think this was the case with direct object pronouns. Could someone explain please?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi, Luke - excellent question.

I cannot give you an academic answer, but I can say that this is a common structure in Spanish. It is not unusual to repeat a d.o. pronoun even when the d.o. is there. It serves for emphasis. In effect, the person said: We are going to win this game! In English we would emphasize the verb, whereas in Spanish the object is emphasized.

I hope this has helped.

Answer 2

To answer your other question, Luke: Yes, it is correct to say:

Vamos a ganar este partido.

This construction is also in common use.

Answer 3

I agree with mountaingirl that this is a very common construction especially for short sentences. You can find previous threads on this usage as we have discussed it before.

This article discusses it.

In order to emphasize the direct or indirect object of a sentence, a redundant object pronoun may be placed before the verb.

The redundant pronoun is required when the actual direct or indirect object precedes the verb.

However, when the object follows the verb, a redundant pronoun is usually (optional).

I would take that "is required" with a grain of salt for direct objects. It is commonly, but not always used.