Él le da crédito a las personas.

Question

Hi guys,

I was reading this article about Steve Jobs, one paragraph says:

¿Y a quién le agradece Jobs este avance? Él le da crédito a las personas que hicieron insostenible su vida académica en Reed College en Portland, Oregón. Sin ellos, tal vez no habría abandonado la escuela. Si no lo hubiera hecho, tal vez no habría descubierto la caligrafía.

Shouldn't the sentence in bold be....Él les da crédito a las personas, or am I missing something here?

Thanks.

This is a very good question. :) - 0066c384, Oct 6, 2011

Good catch on that one! - --Mariana--, Oct 6, 2011

Answer 1

You are right, it should be les, sometimes we start thinking gente and then write personas, no excuse for a written article, but that was probably what happened here

le da crédito a la gente que....

les da crédito a las personas que....

Thank you. - SpanishPal, Oct 6, 2011

my pleasure:) - 00494d19, Oct 6, 2011

Answer 2

Spanish, I may wrong, but I read that object as a singular item.

crédito a las personas

crédito - direct object (singular)

personas - indirect object (plural)

I agree with you. "Personas" is plural, but I believe it is not the best word to use in this sentence. I believe "la gente" would have formed a better sentence because it agrees with the direct object in number. The sentence is written in a confusing manner for me.

I may be totally wrong (I usually am with object pronouns) but that's how I read it.

I hope someone else can help. Thanks for asking the question.

How could las personas be singluar? - SpanishPal, Oct 6, 2011

'Las personas' is the indirect object and it should be 'les', but here it's 'le', is it a typo or is there a reason for that? - SpanishPal, Oct 6, 2011

Thank you, Dogwood. :) - SpanishPal, Oct 6, 2011