confused about "le"
I am also learning Spanish from Livemocha, and here are several sentences I came across in a lesson: Él le está dando un corte de pelo. El cartero le está dando una caja a alguien. Él está dando el recibo. A alguien le están dando el recibo. Ella está dando boletos de avion. Ella está dando el pasaporte. My question is about the use of le. Why in some cases it is used and other not. They seem to have ther same verb and meaning there. Gracias. Feliz Navidad!
2 Answers
There are sentences that have such pattern
Subject + verb + direct object
Ella está dando boletos de avion.
Él está dando el recibo
Ella está dando el pasaporte.
She is giving (what? -> here goes direct object) the passport.
In the sentences where we have “le” the indirect object is introduced – answer the question: to whom? (“le” is pronoun of 3 person singular as indirect object) Look at these examples.
El cartero le está dando una caja.
The postman is giving him/ her the box.
“Le” is the same pronoun for both genders so we guess from the context to who the postman gives the box.
El cartero le está dando una caja a Carmen. Here we have concrete indirect object - Carmen.
In English it’s enough to say : “The postman is giving Carmen the box.” but the Spanish would repeat twice the indirect object
El cartero le (her – obviously it stands for Carmen) está dando una caja a Carmen.
The pattern of the sentence with direct and indirect object can look like that:
Subject* +indirect object as a pronoun +verb + direct object + indirect object*
*** can be omitted when we know from the context,
Muchas gracias.
I think then both sentence are correct grammatically, but different meanings:
El cartero le está dando una caja. The postman is giving (him/her) a box.
El cartero está dando una caja. The postman is giving a box.
Do I understand correctly?
