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"It" in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 24 03 March 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm kind of confused on the word "it" in Spanish. I know that "Lo" can be used, for example "Lo quiero" means I want it, but I've heard it after the verb in other sentences. Could someone clarify this? Also, does it have to agree with the noun? Like in "La cerveza. Lo quiero." Is that the correct placement of "lo" and should it be "la"? I think I've heard it as "las" when referring to "cervezas"
¡muchas gracias para la ayuda, amigos y amigas! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Rabochnok Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 5611 days ago 37 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Turkish, Persian | Message 2 of 24 03 March 2010 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"lo" after masculine nouns, "la" after feminine ones
El libro. Lo quiero. La cerveza. La quiero. Los libros. Los quiero. Las cervezas. Las quiero. And about "lo" after verbs, "lo/la/los/las" can attach to the end of verbs. An example.. hmm... Al libro tienes que quererlo. You have to want the book. A las manzanas tienes que quererlas. You have to want the apples. Oh, and it should be "gracias por la ayuda". Edited by Rabochnok on 03 March 2010 at 8:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5496 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 3 of 24 03 March 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just a point of clarification, your examples were right but the way you descried it has
some ambiguity. You can place the direct object pronoun on the end of a verb, but only an infinitive, otherwise it goes before the verb. Example: I buy the book. Compro el libro. I buy it. Lo compro. But with an infinitive there are two options: I'm going to call her. La voy a llamar. Voy a llamarla. It is my understanding that these both mean the exact same thing. Edited by canada38 on 03 March 2010 at 9:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 24 03 March 2010 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The before/after thing depends on the tense (or lack of it).
If you have a conjugated verb, lo, la etc come before it. (Exception below.) If you have a plain infinitive, or a present participle (the "doing" in "I am doing" is a present participle) you can put it after it, or you can put it before the conjugated verb -- lo estoy haciendo or estoy haciéndolo, but never *estoy lo haciendo. The exception is the positive imperative -- do it! In this, the lo or whatever comes after the verb. (But "don't do it!" has it before the verb.) This is more information than you need at this stage. The main thing is to remember that choice of before or after depends on the context, and the contexts you have seen so far in lessons probably all use it before. You will have seen it outside the lessons after the verb, but that's in a different grammatical context that you haven't learnt yet. Don't be distracted by not knowing why it's different, just be comfortable that it has its reasons. Edit: very silly mistake -- thanks Simonov Edited by Cainntear on 04 March 2010 at 11:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 24 03 March 2010 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
There is no "it" per se in Spanish (or most Romance languages); since all nouns are either masculine or feminine, any reference to a noun will use the same gender. Other answerers here have shown that, but didn't explicitly say so. I feel that this notion is a lot more important at this stage of the game than the placement of the pronoun on infinitives or imperatives. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 6 of 24 04 March 2010 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
What about "lo" used as an action for "it"? Actions don't have genders, so the masculine/neuter article "lo" is used. ¡No lo hagas! (Don't do it!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5982 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 7 of 24 04 March 2010 at 1:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hi, if you look up the word 'it' in a dictionary, you'll read something like this:
The part about situations is covered in Spanish with the word 'eso' (I don't want to talk about it = no quiero hablar de eso), but as for the other two, the word 'it' doesn't have an equivalent in Spanish, as there aren't any object pronouns in (standard) Spanish to talk about things or animals. There are several object pronouns in Spanish, and which one you choose depends on grammatical function rather than on the nature of the object. I suppose you'll learn that step by step, but I will give you a few examples anyway: I don't want to talk about it = No quiero hablar de eso. I give it 10 minutes = Le doy 10 minutos. I want it = Lo/la quiero. It doesn't matter = (eso) no importa. She hit him with it = Lo golpeó con él/ella On the other hand, the words 'los' and 'las' never mean 'it': Quiero las cervezas = Las quiero = I want them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 24 04 March 2010 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It still isn't the equivalent of the English neutral "it" -- it's a masculine pronoun, wihch is masculine by default because it doesn't refer to a noun. There is no "neutral" gender in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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