"I can help you"

Question

when I translate this into Spanish, it translates as "le puedo ayudar". I do not understand why the "le" is in the phrase and not "tu, te, or tú. Can somebody help me with understanding this please?

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Answer 1

Le is formal, and te is for a person you are informal with. You can certainly say "te puedo ayudar" or "puedo ayudarte".

Answer 2

The more interesting question here is whether it should be le, or lo/la for the formal.

Note at this link:

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/265961/ayudarle-o-ayudarloayudarla

There are two native speakers that say using le for ayudar is wrong. And in most areas it is.

If you look at the answers by Kiwigirl and by me, it explains that historically ayudar took an indirect object, but that in the modern era, it takes a direct object almost everywhere, except a few areas of Spain, and that this is not leísmo and does not match the distribution of leísmo. Those specific points are bolded in my answer at the link.

This grammar point may be advanced, but for basic users, the direct object is what you should choose.

In my opinion.

I felt this necessary to add as the other answers seem to imply that using le, rather than la or lo, is correct common Spanish, and it is not what is considered correct by most native speakers. :) - bosquederoble, Nov 25, 2016

Answer 3

Hi @albaarquero, le is the indirect object pronoun for he/she/you-formal (él, ella, Ud.). In this case, "le puedo ayudar" means I can help Ud.. You can also use "te puedo ayudar" or "puedo ayudarte." Hay que utilizar la palabra "te" porque "tú" es un pronombre personal, y "te" es un objeto indirecto - en la frase "te puedo ayudar," "you" is the object of the sentence. No podemos utilizar "tu" porque esta palabra significa "your." Hope this helped!