Verbs and Direct Objects!!
This is a topic that's been confusing me for a while....
Is there a rule about which verbs to use direct and indirect objects with when the recipient is a person?
For example, if I wanted to say "The man scares her." would I say
"El hombre le asusta a ella."
or
"El hombre asusta ella."
Are there different rules for different verbs? Whenever people are the recipients it is difficult for me to choose whether they should be the direct or indirect object.
Thank you for your help!!
6 Answers
The key is whether the verb is 'transitive' or not.
Direct Objects complement transitive verbs, ie verbs that requires both a subject and one or more objects.
For example, the verb “to lift” does not mean anything if it is not specified who lifted and what it was lifted. What gets lifted is the direct object of the verb since it receives the action of the verb.
When the direct object is a person the preposition “a” is used before the person.
José saw Claudia – José vio a Claudia
José: subject, Saw / vio: transitive verb, Claudia / a Claudia: direct object (the transitive verb’s complement – the direct object is a person so the preposition “a” was used before the person)
and if you want to use a pronoun to replace the direct object you can say:
José la vio. Jose saw her.
If you want to know what the direct object of a sentence is, two questions might help you: what? or whom?
José vio a Claudia
Question: Juan saw whom?
Answer: a Claudia – direct object
I hope that helps 
thank you! so would i say "El hombre asusta a ella."?
No, if you say "a ella", you must also add "la": "El hombre la asusta a ella". I'd simply say "El hombre la asusta".
José la vio. Jose saw her. (LA) or José le vio. (Spain)
I am from Spain and I would never say "le" in this case. Maybe for a man, but never for a woman.
If you want to know what the direct object of a sentence is, two questions might help you: what? or whom?
A test that will fail with many verbs, including those like "gustar".
Are there different rules for different verbs? Whenever people are the recipients it is difficult for me to choose whether they should be the direct or indirect object
Perhaps Lazarus could say whether his answer was relevant to Joodie's question. If it is, could he or indeed someone else, point out the rules for these different verbs.
The short answer is... no, there is no "rule" in the mathematical sense of the word. However, the direct object is the most obvious result of the action of the verb. If you break, you expect something to break. That is the direct object. The indirect object is used to indicate who or what gets affected (even positively) by that action, so if you break your mom's favourite jar, your mom is the indirect object: "Le rompí el jarrón a mi madre". Thus, verbs that indicate emotional impacts on people require an indirect object, because we don't feel that we are performing any action, but being passively affected by events, things, smells,... These verbs are gustar, asustar,... (note: some of them can be used without direct or indirect objects using a middle SE, but that's another story).
Some verbs are a bit peculiar, but what I mentioned above summarises the key ideas behind direct and indirect. Try to understand how this works in these sentences (accompanied by literal, non-natural translations):
Le pegué (un puñetazo) al hombre = I "sticked" ("a fist") to that man.
Le he cambiado el tiesto a la planta = I have changed the pot "to the plant"
Lo irrité con mis preguntas = I irritated him with my questions.
Mis preguntas le irritaron = My questions irritated him/her.
La lavó = He/she washed her
Le lavó la cabeza = He/she washed the head [of him/her]
No advertí su presencia = I didn't notice his/her presence
Le advertí que era peligroso = I warned him/her that it was dangerous
I agree with Lazarus: asking "what?" or "whom?" is a bit pointless, as many verbs will happily reply with the i.o., most notably verbs related to communication (like hablar). The only real clues are:
- looking up the verb in the dictionary to make sure that it is transitive to begin with (also in the sense used in your sentence); if it isn't transitive, it can't take a d.o.
- checking that there isn't something else in the sentence that is a more immediate recipient of the verb than the person himself (eg: Juan le dio a Pedro un regalo ; Le voy a arreglar esta radio a María)
- learning about transitive verbs that usually treat persons as i.o., even in the absence of a "real" d.o., eg: pegar
For example, in a sentence like "Juan pegó repetidamente a Pedro", where the verb is transitive, the first impulse may be to think that "Pedro" is the d.o. of "pegar", as it answers the question "Whom did Juan hit?". If that were the case, you could say "Juan lo pegó repetidamente", but you can't, and most native speakers will confirm that it sounds bad. In truth, Pedro is the i.o. and the d.o. is usually implied to be something like "golpe(s)", ie: "Juan pegó (golpes) repetidamente a Pedro", and the correct pronoun for Pedro would be "le": "Juan le pegó repetidamente".
Le asustó a ella.
Lazarus said
A test that will fail with many verbs, including those like "gustar".
Part of Joodie's question was
Are there different rules for different verbs? Whenever people are the recipients it is difficult for me to choose whether they should be the direct or indirect object
Perhaps Lazarus could say whether his answer was relevant to Joodie's question. If it is, could he or indeed someone else, point out the rules for these different verbs.
