when do I use a (to him, to her, to you...)?

Question

Hola amigas y amigos,

Estoy tan confundido.

In lesson 2.7 we had the sentence Le dio el boleto a él, which was translated to he gave him the ticket after that we had the sentence Te dimos el boleto, which was traslated to we gave you the ticket.

For me the second sentence looks more direct and more clear. But I still don´t understand why we did not say Te dimos el boleto **a tí***** or does the sentence ***le dio el boleto give the same meanig of Le dio el boleto a él or maybe it should be Lo dio el boleto a él or Lo dio el boleto.

Gracias y saludos por todos

Answer 1

If I understand correctly the 'a + name or pronoun' on the end is just an optional clarifier to show who the indirect object pronoun is talking about but if the context makes it clear you don't have to use it.

I guess it could also be used as an intensifier, for example 'te' can't mean anything else except 'to you' (tú) but if you want to stress "well, 'you' were the one we gave it to" etc then you could put 'a ti' on the end. That's just my take anyways!