Why is "le" used in this sentence? Profesor is the indirect object.

Question

Yo le dije al profesor que había hecho la tarea.....The indirect object, profesor, is in the sentence. Why do you need two indirect objects?

So.....quiero una unsalada o la quiero una unsalada....two direct objects?

Is there internet information that can help me.

Answer 1

Root1, there are no two indirect objects, but one that appears twice. The answer you are after is complex and not useful for learning the language, but I can tell you that in English you do a similar thing duplicating a pronoun, and Spanish learners keep asking "Why do you use two direct objects? (or two subjects)" Here we go:

I like it when you sing.

Both "it" and "when you sing" are the same thing, so why saying both? Why not "I like when you sing", without the "it", like we do in Spanish? Try to explain that to a Spanish speaker. They won't understand you, because in Spanish you can't duplicate that object like that; it would be a grammatically incorrect sentence. Another example:

It appears that they have finished the job after all.

Here "it" and "they have finished the job after all" are the same thing... again! The subject is duplicated for no apparent reason (there is one, actually; there always is), and Spanish speakers wonder why do you use this redundant "it", since that sentence in Spanish would be ridiculous: two subjects!!!! How is that possible??? (again, there is a reason I won't go into)

My advice? Unless you can explain why English uses this seemingly redundant "it", like Spanish uses "le", just accept it. After all, most Spanish natives without grammatical training don't know why "le" is duplicated either -they just use it correctly.