Se le conoce.

Question

Hello everyone. Could someone please read the following sentence and explain something to me.

El día de San Valentín, es celebrado en decenas de países alrededor del mundo. Se le conoce como el día de los enamorados o de la amistad.

My question is, why do we need the "le" in Se le conoce. I have great trouble getting my head around this construction.

My understanding is that "se conoce" is like a passive construction, "it is known" so if this is the case, and le means to him or her, then this must mean that it is known to someone, but who? Him? Her? who? What am I missing here? Apart from this, my Spanish is progressing well, but this is a stumbling block because it differs so much from my native language.

I have read other posts on se like not putting le and lo together, the accidental se, and the passive se, but I still can't get this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Paul.

Answer 1

In addition to Jubilado´s answer, the use of le here (leísmo) is a common but incorrect usage. The pronoun le should only be used for persons and only for male persons when the person is the accusative (direct object). The article should say: Se lo conoce.

Jubilado´s phrase "Sí, la conozco a tu madre" uses a personal pronoun that is redundant and not required, although not gramatically incorrect. We can also say "Conozco a tu madre" because the verb appears before the direct object, but we must absolutely use the pronoun when the verb appears after the direct object: A tu madre la conozco.

In this case of "Se lo conoce" it is not strictly passive voice but impersonal and active voice, such as "One (unidentified person) knows it as" rather than "It is known as", but in the end the meaning is the same.

:) - ian-hill, Feb 14, 2016

I knew I would get a proper response if I "stuck my neck out"! Thanks for the clarification. - Jubilado, Feb 14, 2016

Ha ha! I stuck out mine too, and mistakenly wrote "they" in place of "one" - all fixed - 005faa61, Feb 15, 2016

Thanks for your answer, so If I´ve got this right, the correct meaning is "it(the day) is known as....but the author is using leismo here. That´s great, it makes more sense now, I´ll have a good think about all of this and hope it sinks in. - 00c41cea, Feb 15, 2016

Answer 2

There are several occurrences in Spanish of a pronoun standing for the direct object being used not in place of the direct object but in addition to it. This sentence is an example of that Spanish peculiarity. In your sentence the verb "it is known as" (se conoce) takes the direct object el día and the pronoun for el día being le is put after the reflexive pronoun (used here to make the verb passive - making the subject the direct object). A simpler example would be "Sí, la conozco a tu madre." "Yes, I know your mother."

There is an name for this usage but I can't think of it now. There have been other posts about it in other examples. I hope another member links to perhaps one of those older posts.

Thanks for your answer, so If I´ve got this right, the correct meaning is "it(the day) is known as....but the author is using leismo here. That´s great, it makes more sense now, I´ll have a good think about all of this and hope it sinks in. - 00c41cea, Feb 15, 2016