Entretener con Objeto Directo o Indirecto

Question

Hola a todos.

He visto varias oraciones con el verbo entretener y algunos usan pronombres de objetos indirectos y otras pronombres de objetos directos.

¿Cuál es correcto-- "Les entretengo a mis hijos" o "Los entretengo"? "El cantante le entretiene mucho a mi esposa" o "El cantante la entretiene mucho a mi esposa"?

Muchas gracias por sus respuestas y explicaciones.

Answer 1

One easy way to remember is that if the verb acts directly on the person you need a direct object pronoun.

I 'entertain' my children. direct = los entretengo a mis hijos

but if the verb acts on something else and then the person comes in later they get the action of the verb indirectly so you use an indirect object pronoun.

I said 'no' to my children. indirect - Les dijo; 'no' a mis hijos.

You didn't say 'your children' you said 'no' and your children got that word indirectly after you had completed the action of saying it (if that makes sense lol)

Having said that you will often come across leísmo where people (native speakers no less) will use le where lo is the only grammatically correct option (just like there are some things commonly said by native English speakers that, gramatically speaking, - Kiwi-Girl, Jan 15, 2013

are also incorrect. - Kiwi-Girl, Jan 15, 2013

object itself. So, your example of "Los entretengo a mis hijos" seems to violate that, no? - scratch2486, Jan 15, 2013

Thanks, Kiwi-Girl. I was wondering if it might be an instance of leísmo. - scratch2486, Jan 15, 2013

de nada :) - Kiwi-Girl, Jan 15, 2013

However, I was under the impression that we do not use both the direct object pronoun and the direct object in the same sentence (unless the direct object comes before the verb) whereas we must use the indirect object pronoun when we also use the indirect - scratch2486, Jan 15, 2013