Facebook Question

Question

In the statement John Doe te ha confirmado como amigo en Facebook.

• Why does te come before the action (confirmado)?
• Why doesn't amigo use an indefinite article since it's a noun?

Shouldn't it be John Doe ha confirmado tú como una amigo en Facebook?.

Answer 1

In this sentence you is a direct object pronoun, not a subject pronoun. In Spanish, the DoP is te, while tú is a subject pronoun, so you have to use te. And DoP's go before the verb (usually, unless it's an infinitive, positive imperative, or gerundio)..

Una amigo would be wrong just because the genders don't match. But como un amigo just doesn't sound right to me. Como amigo sounds better, but I can't tell you why.

It's similar to not using it with professions. Es médico; not es un médico. In our library it is referred to as when nouns are used like adjectives...he is (a) Catholic, he is (a) German, etc. - 0074b507, Jan 7, 2011