Esa vez lo dije todo.

Question

Hi all,

OK, I had to translate the subject phrase:

Esa vez lo dije todo..

into English on an online exercise and got it wrong. I came up with something like "that time I told hm everything" but both the exercise and Spanish dict come up with various things like:.

That time I told everything.. I said everything that time.. This time I said everything.. This time told him everything..

This means that I clearly don't understand the meaning of the 'lo' in the phrase.

Could someone please help demystify?

Thanks Roger

Answer 1

Yes it means 'that time I said 'it' all.'

You can tell because 'lo'(it) is a direct object.

If you wanted to say 'to him', 'to her' etc you would need the indirect object pronoun 'le' (which, just to confuse matters changes to 'se' if it gets used next to 'lo')

It gets tricky because in English we can say - I told him but in Spanish you usually say I told 'it' to him.

For that reason - I told him/her etc would be:

Esa vez se lo dije

• in Spanish you actually have three parts going on there

You say -------> it ---------> to him/her etc

1. Subject/verb 2. direct object 3. indirect object

1) - you and what you're doing

To express that you conjugate the verb - I said / dije

2) - the thing that you said

this is direct object of your sentence; ie. the object that directly receives the action of the verb - 'it' / lo is being said, if you reverse the sentence it might help you to figure out which bit sticks with the verb making it the direct object - I said 'it' - 'it' is being said so it must be the direct object.

3) - the person who you told it to

this would have to be an indirect object 'le' (but watch out because the 'le' changes to 'se' if it gets used before 'lo' also you will see les for plural 'to them' etc). It's called an indirect object because doesn't directly receive the action of the verb instead it indirectly receives it, that is, it receives the direct object.

I hope that isn't too much info and is of some help

Saludos

That is an AWESOME explanation. I´m going to read it again tomorrow when I wake up and haven´t just worked most of 18 hours straight. I suspect my retention will be better then. THANKS. - rogspax, Jun 29, 2012

lol you're welcome - also I was just thinking that you might find this lesson helpful :) http://learnenglishspanishonline.webs.com/apps/forums/topics/show/7799971-verbs-like-gustar-that-use-an-indirect-object-pronoun- - Kiwi-Girl, Jun 29, 2012

it's actually about gustar but it does have more info on indirect object pronouns and their uses - Kiwi-Girl, Jun 29, 2012

Answer 2

Rog- here's my shot- "That time I said it all". I think the "lo" in this case is "it". The machine translators won't be ofmuch help on this one!

Thanks. That makes sense. I think I incorrectly translated. To get my result of ¨that time I told him everything¨ the given phrase would have to have been Esa vez LE dije todo. I messed up LE vs LO. Sound right? - rogspax, Jun 29, 2012

Sounds exactly right! :)) - Noetol, Jun 29, 2012

gracias - rogspax, Jun 29, 2012