placement of pronoun

Question

"Este verano lo vamos a pasar en Cartagena, Colombia." Why is "lo" needed in the sentence?

Welcome to SpanishDict. Please take a minute to add the language part of your profile. - rac1, Sep 18, 2014

Answer 1

Very good question.

To my understanding (this is from memory as I do not have a link handy at this time, this is now on the level of it just how it should sound to me):

If you put the direct object before the verb (and with direct objects as opposed to indirect, only if it is before the verb)- there needs to be a direct object pronoun placeholder.

So you could write: Vamos a pasar este verano en Cartagena, Colombia.

Without it- but since whoever wrote it wanted to change the emphasis with word order- the pronoun was required.

Este verano=lo is the direct object of pasar.

When I have a bit more time I might try looking for a link. This is fairly advanced grammar and most learners are not taught to put a true direct object (as opposed to the pronoun) in front of the verb- but it is allowed in Spanish to my understanding.

Okay found a link:

http://spanish.about.com/od/sentencestructure/a/word-order-in-spanish.htm

El libro lo escribió Juan. (John wrote the book.)

Placing the object at the beginning of the sentence can have the effect of placing more emphasis on the object. In the sample sentence, the emphasis is on what was written, not who wrote it. The pronoun lo, although redundant, is customary in this sentence construction.

Anyway I think it helps prevent confusion as to what is the subject and what is the object, especially if they are ones that can be confused. In the link you might almost think the book wrote Juan without the "lo".

Thanks bosque. While the answer is still sort of brain melting, it's also something that I contiually go "WHYYY DO THEY DO THIS??" and frustrates me to no end. I've read many lessons and articles on it but it's still a murky area for me. - Hucklebeary, Sep 18, 2014

The why, as noted above, in this case, to shift the emphasis. I think we use word stress more than Spanish does to change emphasis, and Spanish uses word order more than we do. - bosquederoble, Sep 18, 2014

Ooo... that's a very interesting observation that I hadn't thought of. I haven't had much time listening native speakers to really notice that nuance of the language compared to ours. Now I'll constantly be on the lookout for it I'm sure. Thanks :) - Hucklebeary, Sep 18, 2014