"Lo escribí yo." vs "Yo lo escribí." - I wrote it.

Question

Is there any difference in meaning between "Lo escribí yo." and "Yo lo escribí."?

I am trying to learn Spanish and I am getting confused with the syntax.
It seems like the subject (i.e. Yo in the example above) can be placed anywhere in the sentence. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Unless you are trying to emphasize that "I" am the one doing the writing, you normally wouldn't use the personal pronoun yo. If you do use it, "yo lo escribí" would be more common, but the other example is not excluded. You will find that syntax rules in Spanish are not very rigid, allowing for a lot of flexibility in the way things are said.

Sorry, Rog. We answered at the same time! :)) - Noetol, Jun 25, 2012

Thank you Noetol! - 0095ca4c, Jun 25, 2012

Answer 2

I agree with the other answers:

Yo lo escribí = emphasizes that YOU wrote it.

Lo escribí = I wrote it (period, no emphasis here)

Answer 3

Spanish is for the most part more flexible than English. Either way, you have the object'pronoun coming before the verb, which is right. To my relative beginners ear, the 2nd sounds more normal, though I wouldn´t write in the ´yo´ in either one. They tend not to explicitly state the ´Yo´ anyway, which makes it easy to sidestep this one

I´ll be following along to see what the better speakers say, as I´m working on word order a lot anyway, and this one I´m especially weak on, simply because Yo, and other pronouns, are so infrequently heard anyway.

It´s hard to train the ear for words often left unsaid.

Thanks rogspax! - 0095ca4c, Jun 25, 2012