Le or Les in this sentence

Question

I came across the following sentence when doing Spanish lessons:

"La niña está gritando porque le tiene miedo a las serpientes." (context: a young boy is scaring his sister with a toy snake)

It seems to me that "le" here is an indirect object telling "to what" the girl has fear. Shouldn´t it be "les" instead since the plural "snakes" is the object of fear in this case? I thought the indirect object had to match the number of the clarifying preposition (e.g. Ella le abraza a su amigo).

Answer 1

"La niña está gritando porque le tiene miedo a las serpientes". Is correct. le: singular. La niña (just one girl) les: plural : "Las niñas (many girls) están gritando porque les tienen miedo a las serpientes"

It could be "La niña está gritando porque les tiene miedo" but without "serpientes".. because "les" is referring to the snakes..

I speak spanish but I am not really sure maybe I'm wrong.

You are right on the money. One is a direct object pronoun and the other an indirect object pronoun. Good job! - francobollo, May 29, 2013

La verdad, esa oración no es correcta, pero así y todo, tu ejemplo sirve para dar más claridad a la cuestión - diagonx, May 29, 2013

Thanks for the response. I´m very confused by this. - Trieltor, May 29, 2013

Answer 2

You are correct, the indirect obejct pronoun should match the noun it affects, in the case les, for las serpientes.

In your example, the pronoun is not necessary, unless you wanted to replace the predicate with a direct object: Ella lo abraza.

Ella le teme a ellos. Ellas les temen a ellos. Big difference! - francobollo, May 29, 2013

Thanks for the response. - Trieltor, May 29, 2013

Answer 3

Ella le teme a ellos. Ellas les temen a ellos. Big difference! - francobollo

There are differences:

Ella le teme (a él, ella, ud.)

Ella les teme (a ellos, ellas, ustedes)

Ella me teme (a mí)

Ella nos teme...

Ella os teme...