Ella le trae su libro.

Question

I saw this sentence in a dictionary>

Ella le trae su libro.

She is bringing her book.

It doesn't make sense to me,what is the function of le in the sentence and why is it in that position.Can someone please explain?

Answer 1

This sentence is a little confusing because the "her" in the English translation doesn't refer to "ella", but instead to another woman. They could have cleared their example up a bit by adding a personal a and a name (a María, a Raquel, etc.) or by simply translating it as "his"

Agreed overall, but couldn´t the ´her´also refer to the original ´ella´? Isn´t that also unclear and ambiguous? - rogspax, Nov 20, 2012

no, with the "le" there needs to be a personal "a" before the recipient. - pescador1, Nov 20, 2012

Answer 2

Ella - she

le -her

trae - brings

su libro - her book

So it roughly translates as, she brings her book to her?

or her book to him, or his book to him, or his book to her. le and su ae both gender ambiguous. - rogspax, Nov 20, 2012

Answer 3

Well, first of all, you don´t know who she is bringing the book to here.

Le could mean ´her´ or ´him´ here.

And isn´t ´su libro´ambiguous? i.e. it could mean ´her book´ or ´his book´ and I´m not sure you can tell if ´her book´ whether that would mean the original ella or a 2nd female.

I think there´s not enough context here, and the only part we can really answer is that ´le´ means ´her´ or ´to her´ or ´him´ or ´to him´ It could really use a clarifying ´a él´ or ´a ella´ to identify the recipient.

We can also say the le is in the position because that is where the indirect object preposition has to go when it is not attached to an infinitive.

Caveat, I´m still learning too, so maybe its less ambiguous than it appears to me.

Answer 4

Ella le trae su libro. She is bringing your/her(not her own) book.

Ella se trae su libro. She is bringing her own book.