How to analyze: Ahora le pongo, Ahora le paso con él ?

Question

With my analysis of these two sentences the translations are a bit strange. Can anyone help me?

Ahora le pongo: 'le' must be a complemento indirecto, so will the literal translation be: Now (ahora) I give (pongo) to him (le) ?

Ahora le paso con él: Again, 'le' must be a complemento indirecto, so will the literal translation be: 'Now (ahora) I give (paso) to him (le) with him (con él) ?

Muchas gracias.

Answer 1

Hi:

Because Spanish people in the American countries use "Usted" and "Ustedes" to speak formally to people, and because the correspondant object pronoun for those forms of "you" are "le" (in singular" and "les" in plural, the message: Ahora le pongo has to be translated this way: "I put YOU in communication";

In Le paso con él. the "le" also means "you": I put YOU in line with him (the man you are calling).

But since Usted (Ustedes) are third person pronouns like él (ellos) and ella (ellas), it's quite normal that they share the same objects "le" and "les" in many cases. Hope it helped you...

Carhl

Thanks a lot, but I'm wondering, in both translations 'I put you (usted) in communication' and 'I put you (usted) in line with him', 'le' is translated as an object (complemento directo), while it is a complemento indirecto... - Flip2, Dec 3, 2011

Será útil consultar http://www.aulahispanica.com/objeto-directo-e-indirecto.html donde nos explican que aunque Los pronombres personales masculinos de objeto directo para persona y cosa son lo y los. Sin embargo, está aceptado el uso de le. - Carhl, Dec 4, 2011