María se la comió
Why is la in front of comio instead of comió la.
¿La torta? María se la comió.
6 Answers
In Spanish, the object pronoun goes before conjugated verbs and negative commands. English says "She ate it" but Spanish order says "It she ate."
"Se la comió" = She ate it all up.
Why is la in front of comio instead of comió la.
One could also ask why don't you say "She it ate" in English. Each language has its own word order, and in Spanish, object pronouns go before the verb with most tenses.
I suppose Yoda would find learning Spanish quite easy.
This language, learn I am going to.
This is an example of "se" used to intensify the action. One can just say "La comió.", meaning, he/she ate it, but with adding se (comer ---> comerse), it now means that the person ate it up.
Regarding the direct object pronoun, it can go after the verb only if the verb is an infinitive, a positive imperative or command (here the pronoun is required to come after), or a present participle, and if it goes after the verb it is always stuck to its end (comerla, cómela, comiéndola).
Those above have covered this, but you either put the Direct Object Pronouns (lo, la, los, las) before the conjugated verb or stuck onto an infinitive.
Lo voy a comer. Voy a comerlo.
Means the same thing!
This isn't what you asked but just to add clarification, when both the direct and indirect object pronouns are of the third person, and occur together, the indirect forms le and les are replaced by se (which should not be confused with the reflexive se).
Also whatever their person, if a direct and an indirect object pronoun both occur, the indirect must precede the direct.
