nos vs nosotros
I'm confused: If you say: "To us, this is very difficult," you use "A nosotros". [Nosotros is also translated as "we" if you want to emphasize the subject, right?]. So when is "nos" used? I see it as the ending of a verb such as "helping us" is ayudarnos, but is nos used in other ways? When is it used rather than using nosotros? Gracias por ayudarme! Senora Annie
2 Answers
Nosotros is a subject pronoun and nos is an object pronoun.
Subject' pronouns are usually optional and are used to emphasize the subject of a verb: yo hablo, 'I'm talking', el duerme 'he's sleeping'. Hablo and duerme work just as well without the subject pronoun.
'Object' pronouns (other than third-person) may be used either as the direct object or the indirect object of a verb, te quiero 'I love you', te hablo 'I'm talking to you', me habló. 'He spoke to me', nos vio 'he saw us', nos dio 'he gave (to) us'. Etc etc.
Normaly nosotros is the subject pronoun, and the object of a preposition, and nos is the the direct and indirect object.
A nosotros nos gusta algo= to us, something pleases us ( a nosotros there is an emphasizer- as opposed to whoever it is not pleasing to, so something else is normally needed)
A is a preposition, nos is an indirect object.
Normally for “to me”- I use para, but as above it is dependant on context.
Para nosotros, es importante saber hablar español. To us it is important to know how to speak Spanish.
Gracias por ayudarnos- here nos is a direct object. Thank you for helping us.
Él nos dio un libro. He gave us a book.- nos is an indirect object.
So direct object and indirect object- nos
Obejct of a preposition or a subject preposition- nosotros.
