Goin' Indirect

Last week, I covered direct object pronouns. If you remember, these were shorter, smaller words that referenced a noun that the verb was referring to in the sentence. Like "the cat grabbed the string." The string would be the direct object because it is receiving the action by the cat with the verb.

Today, I want to talk about indirect object pronouns. Again, this is the same as a direct object pronoun with a slight difference. To make it indirect, you are referring to a person or animal that affects or is affected by that direct object. Take the following example:

¿Quién regala María el coche? Ella lo regala el coche. (or... Ella se lo regala.)

Who does Mary give the car to? She gives him the car (or... She gives it to him.

I want you to notice a couple of things with the above example. First, lo refers to who Mary gave the car to -- him. The car is the direct object that the verb "gives" refers to. After the "or," lo refers to the car by using the word "it." The second thing I want you to notice is the order in which the direct and indirect objects are located in the very last sentence. The indirect goes first followed by the direct second. When the direct object is a lo/la, you have to change lo to se to keep from sounding like you're singing some sort of Christmas carol.

Here's a quick chart to show you all of the indirect object pronouns along with the direct object pronouns and where the verb could be:

Person	Singular	Plural
to me/to us	Me	Nos
to you/to you all	Te	Os
to him/to her/to you/to it	Le (Se)	Les (Se)

 

This should be enough for right now. I don't want to overload you with pronouns. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section or email me at SpanishMyWay@hotmail.com. I would be happy to answer your questions or even answer them through an up-coming weekly post. ¡Hasta luego!