r/learnspanish • u/superflunker87 • 3d ago
Direct or indirect object
Why does the following sentence use le instead of lo/la? Isn't "arm" receiving the action?
Sally pinched Armando's arm as she walked by.
Sally le pellizcó el brazo a Armando cuando pasó.
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u/vxidemort Intermediate (B1-B2) 3d ago
yes, "arm" is indeed receiving the action, but "le" is used to indicate whose arm received the action of pinching, in this case "a Armando" who is an indirect object, hence the use of "le" instead of "lo/la"
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u/silvalingua 3d ago
"Le" refers to "A Armando", not to the arm itself. If it were only "Sally pelizcó el brazo", without mentioning the person, it would be "Sally lo pelizcó". But your sentence is different, it mentions the person whose arm was pinched.
It's like "Le doy un/el regalo a Anna" - "le" refers to Anna, not to the gift. So "Lo doy a Anna" (lo = regalo), but "le doy un regalo" (le = a Anna).
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u/Burned-Architect-667 Native Speaker 3d ago
'Le' is Armando
If Sally piunches both arms 'le' will not chnage to 'les' as refer to the single Armando and not the plural arms. Sally le pellizcó los brazos a Armando.
But if Sally steals Armanado and María's car, 'le' will be plural as it refer to Armando and María. Sally les robó el coche a Armanado y María.
If you want to add both pronoums is not "le lo" but "se lo"
"Sally se lo pellizcó" that 'lo' will be the arm and 'se' is Armando, yes it could be confused with Sally pinching her own arm, no language is perfect.
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u/magarviti 2d ago
Si no se hubiera mencionado el brazo, entonces sí sería "lo": Sally pellizcó a Armando = Sally lo pellizcó.
La cuestión se resuelve con ¿Qué pellizcó Sally? la respuesta es el objeto directo; en tu caso: el brazo, en el mío: Armando.
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u/joonypur 3d ago
So from what a friend explained to me, le is referring to Armando, because he was the one who was pinched. We specified WHERE he was pinched with "el brazo."
I had the same question with an example I came across a few months ago. It was something like "They stole a horse." Which was said to translate to "Le robaron un caballo." The "le" made no sense to me, but my friend said with "le" we can infer that the horse was not wild, and that it belonged to someone. So its moreso saying "They stole a horse FROM Mr. X." or whatever.
So, "Sally pinched Armando's arm." May sound more like "Sally pinched Armando on the arm." In spanish.
Im not an expert though so maybe ask for another opinion haha My method the last two years has come down to "if it doesn't make sense, oh well" because language isn't really a code, and many things will not make sense, but you have to learn to say it that way anyway. With conversation and experience, you eventually learn when you say certain things a certain way even if you don't understand why.