Answers
Apr 02, 2014 - 01:07 PM
Hello djwelch,
"Ver" is a transitive verb, so the direct object pronoun should be "lo":
- Vi a Pedro ayer = I saw Pedro yesterday.
- Lo vi ayer = I saw him yesterday.
That used to be the rule, but in some areas of Spain (Central and Northern Spain above all) the use of the pronoun "le" instead of "lo" is so frequent that in the end the Real Academia (RAE) had to accept that the pronoun "le" can also be used for direct objects when these refer to a singular, masculine person. So, it's acceptable to say:
- Lo/Le vi ayer = I saw him yesterday.
But if you're referring to a woman you should say:
- La vi ayer = I saw her yesterday.
And in the plural it's not acceptable to say "Les vi ayer" (I saw them yesterday) even if you're referring to men, it's always "Los vi ayer". This phenomenon is called "leísmo", and we also have "laísmo" and "loísmo". All these phenomena refer to the (mis)use of the pronouns lo, la and le for direct and indirect objects. Here is a link to what I just explained:
http://www.rae.es/consultas/uso-de-lo...
It's in Spanish, but may be interested in reading it. In that article there are also links to explanations on leísmo, laísmo and loísmo, but those might be more difficult to understand, so I found this in English:
http://blogs.transparent.com/spanish/...
And finally, it seems that this is a phenomenon that is not so widespread in the Latin America but mainly in Spain.
I hope this helps!
"Ver" is a transitive verb, so the direct object pronoun should be "lo":
- Vi a Pedro ayer = I saw Pedro yesterday.
- Lo vi ayer = I saw him yesterday.
That used to be the rule, but in some areas of Spain (Central and Northern Spain above all) the use of the pronoun "le" instead of "lo" is so frequent that in the end the Real Academia (RAE) had to accept that the pronoun "le" can also be used for direct objects when these refer to a singular, masculine person. So, it's acceptable to say:
- Lo/Le vi ayer = I saw him yesterday.
But if you're referring to a woman you should say:
- La vi ayer = I saw her yesterday.
And in the plural it's not acceptable to say "Les vi ayer" (I saw them yesterday) even if you're referring to men, it's always "Los vi ayer". This phenomenon is called "leísmo", and we also have "laísmo" and "loísmo". All these phenomena refer to the (mis)use of the pronouns lo, la and le for direct and indirect objects. Here is a link to what I just explained:
http://www.rae.es/consultas/uso-de-lo...
It's in Spanish, but may be interested in reading it. In that article there are also links to explanations on leísmo, laísmo and loísmo, but those might be more difficult to understand, so I found this in English:
http://blogs.transparent.com/spanish/...
And finally, it seems that this is a phenomenon that is not so widespread in the Latin America but mainly in Spain.
I hope this helps!
Apr 03, 2014 - 06:39 PM
Thanks. I'd read about "leismo" last year but forgot about it. FYI, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, though not Spanish, uses "le" as a direct object for males all the time in his novels.