Mandatos informales con pronombres

Question

I have a spanish semester 3 exam tomorrow and I'm looking over the study guide and I noticed something that I don't understand. The answer guide shows the following answers that follow to be correct, but there seems a discrepancy to me.

"No permitas (permitir) que los alumnos coman en clase y oblígales (obligar a los estudiantes) a que participen. Dales (dar a los estudiantes) que estudien la tarea para la próxima clase y recuérdalos (recordar a los estudiantes) que estudien para la examen."

I was wondering, why is "les" used at the end of obligar and dar but yet "los" is used after recordar, when they are all used in the context "...a los estudiantes" ? This is something that is really confusing me, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Brandon... if you have 20 minutes before your exam, watch this lesson...

http://www.spanishdict.com/learn/show/20

"Los" and "les" are used for completely different reasons.

Some easy examples:

Yo los veo. I see them. "Los" answers "what" or "whom" I see. Is this case, them.

Yo les doy el libro. I give the book to them. "Les" answers "to whom" or "to what" I give the book. In this case, to them.

Answer 2

No permitas (permitir) que los alumnos coman en clase

All negative commands with "no" will used subjunctive.

y oblígales (obligar a los estudiantes) a que participen.

That's imperative. "Oblígalos" is somewhat preferred (due to grammatical considerations), but no option is really incorrect.

Dales (dar a los estudiantes) que estudien la tarea para la próxima clase y recuérdalos (recordar a los estudiantes) que estudien para la examen."

The idea is good, but there are three big grammatical mistakes here. It should be:

Dales algo para que estudien la tarea para la próxima clase y recuérdales que estudien para el examen."

I was wondering, why is "les" used at the end of obligar

This is difficult to explain, but how would you express it without "les"? In any case, "oblígalos" is preferred grammatically speaking, even though "oblígales" is accepted.

Thanks. That's the answer guide, so I just posted what the teacher gave us. My only real question here was the usage of "les" sometimes and "los" at others. Is there any particular instance in which one would be more accepted over the other? - Brandon, May 11, 2011

Answer 3

I almost want to say that it should be "recuérdales", too. If you are talking about "to the students" in every context, and an Indirect Object answers "to whom", or "to what", I would think you would use "les".

I'm still learning direct and indirect objects, too... so hopefully someone else will chime in.