Oradores de español (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Oradores de español
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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Lingua
Decaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5582 days ago
186 posts - 319 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch

Message 9 of 12

20 September 2009 at 11:26am | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

"que" is a funny beast. No, actually, it's not -- it's very straightforward... it's just that English is messy and confuses us at times.

"Que" like things to follow in a straightforward manner.
The man that did something.
El hombre que hizo algo.
Straightforward, see?

But let's imagine this one
The man that he killed.
More or less straightforward. But what about
The man that killed. ?

That's fine in English, but in Spanish they like to drop their pronouns. If you drop the "he" from "the man that he killed", you get a totally different sentence!

So while we can use "that" in this way in English, it just wouldn't work in Spanish.

That's why we can only use a plain "que" for the man that did something -- "El hombre que hizo algo". When we're using que for the person who it was done to, we have to "dress up" the conjunction "que" with something to tell us it's different, just so we don't get the wrong idea.

You need either an object pronoun or a preposition before the "que" so that we know what we're talking about.
The man that he killed = El hombre lo que mató (lo = direct object pronoun he/it)
The house I live in = La casa en que vivo

Cainntear wrote:

"The message I sent" is "el mensaje lo que mandé" (direct object)
What would "the man I sent the message to" be?
el hombre l* que mandé el mensaje -- is l* "lo" or "le"?

This is all quite simple Spanish and if you can't get it right you should not be lecturing others.

Edited by Lingua on 20 September 2009 at 11:39am
1 person has voted this message useful

Lingua
Decaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5582 days ago
186 posts - 319 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch

Message 10 of 12

20 September 2009 at 11:35am | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

Would it be the same if I was talking about the address I sent the message to?

"la dirección a la que mandé el mensaje"

Edited by Lingua on 20 September 2009 at 11:40am
1 person has voted this message useful

roncy
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5923 days ago
105 posts - 112 votes

Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Latin

Message 11 of 12

20 September 2009 at 12:02pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

Would it be the same if I was talking about the address I sent the message to? IE is al here the "personal" a or the preposition "to"?

Personal "a" is used when the direct object is a person or a personification, while the preposition "a", as preposition proper meaning "to/for", refers to indirect objects. Therefore your sentence in Spanish, the address being indirect object, would be:
La dirección a la que mandé el mensaje

[The rest of my post was not properly thought through, so I edited it out.]

Edited by roncy on 21 September 2009 at 5:10am
1 person has voted this message useful

Ajijic10
Diglot
Senior Member
Mexico
Joined 6921 days ago
161 posts - 210 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish

Message 12 of 12

20 September 2009 at 6:21pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

(I think. I'm a learner myself and I have a particular habit of making mistakes in my writing.)

A question for people who know better than me: does "le que" exist? I.E. ¿Se usa el pronombre objeto indirecto antes de la conjunción, o sólo el directo? No creo que me lo hayan dicho....

I don't mean to cause an argument here, but you should really remove Spanish from your profile as a language in which you consider yourself to be proficient, and put it under the "Studies" category. These are questions that are covered in any beginning language course that I've ever used (Pimsleur, Assimil).

I know you swear by the Michel Thomas method, but your posts in this thread could be construed as a compelling reason not to spend any time with the courses.

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