Decirle o decirlo?
This verb has always confused me and still does. If I were to say "I don't want to tell him", would it be...
"No quiero decirle" or "No quiero decirlo" or a slight variant?
¡Gracias!
1 Answer
Do not worry about it, this is a typical spanish mistake. In the north of Spain people usually is wrong about the correct use of le, la y lo. These kinds of mistakes have their own name: "laismo, loismo and leismo" but the most common is the laismo. This is the incorrect use of the complement "la" when should be lo or le (depending of the context).
In your example you explain to different ideas:
1) "No quiero decirle". In this sentence you talk about saying anything to anybody: I do not want to tell (nothing) him/her. You must add the direct complement ¿what?. For example "no quiero decirle nada" or "quiero decirle algo". The "le" after the verb show that you want to say any to him/her (the gender does not matter). A common mistake of the spanish people is distinguish between genders: "No quiero decirla nada" <-- Incorrect
2) "No quiero decirlo". In this sentence you talk about yourself: I do not want to tell it. It is totally different than the other sentence.
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