Practicing Pronouns
I was trying to get a clearer picture of how to use personal pronouns (subject, dir. obj., ind. obj., etc.), so I thought up a sentence:
"He brushed his teeth for her."
I mixed genders and threw in a reflexive to make it trickier.
I came up with:
"Él se le cepilló los dientes par ella."
Google Translate came back with,
"He brushed HER teeth for her."
Whoa, what's up with that?
I tried,
"Se le cepilló él los dientes para ella."
That worked; "He brushed HIS teeth for her.", but I'm not sure why.
Anyone else have any thoughts on that? How do I clarify who's the recipient of the action in cases like this?
2 Answers
Then I guess the question is this: How would you construct the following two indicative sentences?:
"He brushed his teeth for her."
(because his mother told him to)
and
"He brushed her teeth for for her."
(the dentist cleaned the old lady's false teeth)
I think you are confusing an already confused translator by an unecessary Él and le.
The correct way would be Se cepilló los dientes para ella and even with this, the translator gets confused.
"Se le cepilló él los dientes para ella" isn´t exactly right because it is saying "He washed her teeth for her."