Why is there a le in this sentence?
Hi. Well today, I was riding the bus and I saw a sign that read in Spanish "El conductor le abrirá la puerta". Now I know it means "The driver/operator will open the door." What I don't understand is why there is a le in the sentence. Why is it there? There is no indirect object in that sentence? Can somebody please explain to me why there is a le in that sentence and what it means if it means anything? Thanks!
7 Answers
The conductor will open the door for you.
It may seem more streamlined and economical to you, but NOT good English
There is nothing wrong with a verb having an indirect object pronoun in English as long as the direct object (if there is one) is not a pronoun. There is also nothing wrong with making it a subject pronoun in passive voice as long as the preposition is "to" when it is the object of a preposition rather than an object of the verb.
English and Spanish generally handle IO pronouns differently. Sometimes they handle them similarly, though.
I bought you the ring = I bought the ring for you.
Te compré el anillo = Compré el anillo para ti.
As a non-native, I do get a sense of "for you and you alone" when seeing "para usted" whereas using LE feels less "special" and more "general"...I don't know if that is a justified feeling, though.
So, they are basically equal, but it is definitely shorter to use LE instead of PARA USTED. Also, it might make it sound more institutional rather than kind of corny...like, if the sign said "para usted", then, upon opening the door, the conductor might say, "Now, I want you know that I'm going to open this door for YOU, but not for none of them other guys!"
Again, I don't know if natives would get that feeling or not. It could be they wouldn't blink twice at seeing it either way.
So, they are basically equal, but it is definitely shorter to use LE instead of PARA USTED. Also, it might make it sound more institutional rather than kind of corny...like, if the sign said "para usted", then, upon opening the door, the conductor might say, "Now, I want you know that I'm going to open this door for YOU, but not for none of them other guys!"
I've been reading about this in Gramática de la lengua española by Emilio Alarcos Llarach, which is prominently labeled "Real Academia Española", and it seems to say something different. It says that using "para usted" instead of "a usted" = "le" means that you are using an "adyacente circunstancial" instead of an "objeto indirecto" and he devotes section 350 to discussing this effect of using "para". He then goes on to say that direct and indirect objects essentially modify the meaning of the verb phrase in the sentence, while "La presencia o la ausencia de los circunstanciales no modifica en esencia ni la estructura ni el sentido de una oración."
To me, this means that using "para usted" doesn't make the action more specific to you, but less--almost like opening the door had nothing to do with you and letting you through was an afterthought.
Are they interchangeable or is there a difference between those two sentences?
That's just the way they say it.
If you want to learn Spanish, you learn what they prefer to say.
If you would rather learn to speak English using Spanish words, and sound like a foreigner, then continue to use the resulting clumsy expressions.
If you were teaching somebody to speak English, and taught them to say, "Give him the book" -- Suppose your student answered you back and suggested, Why don't they say "Give the book to him?". Isn't "Give him the book" more streamlined and economical?
Isn't conductor le abrirá more economical than adding "para usted" to the end?
As explained here in section 5, when the indirect object is a pronoun, the le is required. Also, I don't think you can use para in that sentence.
I think that in the sentence with "para usted" the sign would be saying that you are the recipient of the door being opened rather than having the door opened for you. In other words, having "you" be the object of preposition rather than the indirect object of the verb doesn't make sense in Spanish in this case.
Follow up Question!
I now understand why there is a le in that sentence but I don't understand why the sign didn't say El conductor abrirá la puerta para usted.? Are they interchangeable or is there a difference between those two sentences?
