Direct vs. Indirect Objects

Question

¡Hola!

I just saw a sample sentence use"Le voy a ver", to mean "I am going to see him." However, since the "him" is what is being seen, I thought we should use "Lo voy a ver." Can anyone please shed light on this?

¡Gracias!

Answer 1

I will simply quote the Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leísmo

Leísmo ("using le") is a dialectal variation in the Spanish language that occurs largely in Spain. It involves using the indirect object pronoun le in place of the (standard) masculine direct object pronoun lo, especially when the direct object refers to a male person.

Leísmo with animate objects is both common and prescriptively accepted in many dialects spoken in Spain, but uncommon in most others. Leísmo is always rejected in linguistic prescription when the direct object to which it refers is not an animate object.

Examples:

Veo al chico ("I see the boy") ? Lo veo (standard Spanish, with lo)

Veo al chico ("I see the boy") ? Le veo (leísmo, common in Spain; other regions prefer lo veo)

Veo el árbol ("I see the tree") ? Le veo (not accepted in linguistic prescription — the tree is not a person)

The use of le in dialects where leísmo is common typically correlates with the use of the preposition a for animate direct objects. That is, if a dialect features leísmo, le replaces masculine direct objects that would have been preceded by a if expressed in full. (For this "personal a", see Spanish prepositions.)

The use of "le" as a direct object pronoun is a leftover from older Spanish. It is used almost without exception in the Spanish Bible--version Reina-Valera (original and revision of 1960.) - Daniela2041, Dec 9, 2016

If I understand correctly leísmo is absent in Andulasia, and many of the features of Latin American Spanish such as this absence, seseo, ustedes, etc. relate to the fact that the biggest influence on Latin American Spanish was Western Andalusian Spanish. - bosquederoble, Dec 9, 2016

But I could be wrong in that. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 9, 2016

In elementary school in Rota, I was taught to use the "ceceo" even though Rota is in Western Andalusía. The popular speech there is more like Latin American as you say. - Daniela2041, Dec 9, 2016

Things may be different there now. I haven't been there in over 20 years. - Daniela2041, Dec 9, 2016

In Andalucía the people pronunce their region name with s but write it with c. - 000a35ff, Dec 9, 2016

I don't know why Latin America ended up with seseo, when that is inland, and ceceo is coastal, except that the Canaries are also seseo if I am correct. - bosquederoble, Dec 9, 2016

Andalusia in English. Andalucía in Spanish. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 9, 2016

I was under the impression that if a verb requires the preposition "a", it doesn't matter if "lo" or "le" is used. Ex. = ayudarlo(s)/a(s) or ayudarle(s) - codyandrews1993, Dec 10, 2016

I think it is still nice to know whether a verb takes the direct or indirect, which does not always match what it takes in English. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 10, 2016

Answer 2

When talking about people, we often use 'le' even when 'lo' or 'la' are needed.

Answer 3

Leismo. When you are referring to a direct object that is a woman, some women or Men, but not When you are referring to a single man in this case you can use lo or le being gramatical correct both.

See the box in the link I provide.

Leismo R.A.E

Thanks, Astotxua. :) I'm learning. :) - rac1, Dec 9, 2016