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Leismo | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sirgregory Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6739 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 15 14 July 2006 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have always noticed that native speakers of Spanish use the direct and indirect object pronouns inconsistently. For example, sometimes I hear le conozco, sometimes lo conozco, and so on. I was always confused because people would use le even when it was clearly a direct object. Recently I read there is a name for this, "Leismo," and that it's actually quite standard.
According to the Real Academia it's okay to use le as the direct object pronoun as long as what it refers to is singular, masculine, and animate. So, you could say -le vi a tu hermano ayer- and it would be totally correct. They also say that you can't use it in the plural or in the femimine. So, these following examples would be mistakes: -conoces a ella? Si le conozco- Yes, I know her. -Les quiero tanto- I love you all so much. -No les conozco- I don't know them. Personally, I like the leismo in most cases. I think -mucho gusto en conocerle- sounds much nicer than the alternative. The le sounds more human to me. Also, using le is easier because you don't have to think about whether it's a direct or indirect object, which can be tricky. I think with women I agree with the Academia. I think -la amo- (I love her) is preferable to -le amo- I don't know about not doing it for plurals though. I think -los quiero mucho-(I love you all) sounds kind of impersonal, and I would probably say -les queiro- instead even though this would tecnically be wrong. I am curious to know to what extent everyone else uses leismo. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6859 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes  Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 2 of 15 14 July 2006 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sirgregory: Something about this topic has been already discused in another thread, so maybe you should take a look here where there is some information about "leísmo".
In that thread Translator2 posted this link about the same topic: leísmo Edited by Alfonso on 14 July 2006 at 4:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sirgregory Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6739 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 15 14 July 2006 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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That link is pretty good, but I am more curious about the personal opinions of individual speakers rather than very general things like "in some parts you may hear this construction..." etc. I want to know which you consider more graceful, more educated, or whatever.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6892 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 15 15 July 2006 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
The personal preferences will probably go hand in hand with what particular variant of Spanish the person happens to confess to. I use leismo myself because that is the way i learned it and it is fairly common here in Spain. I am surprised though that you should think of it as being simpler. To me it is definitely an added complication. Tadeo makes many good points there, on what it can sound like from his Mexican perspective. On the other side of the coin, being used to leismo, it can sound strange to hear "lo conozco" about a person - a little like that person being talked about as an object. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lucia Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6818 days ago 146 posts - 147 votes Speaks: English, Spanish* Studies: German | Message 6 of 15 16 July 2006 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I use leismo too.What the R.A.E. considers leismo today may be proper Spanish tomorrow if enough Spaniards use it during a long period of time.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7101 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 15 17 July 2006 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||
Personally, I agree with Henrik that this is, in fact, an added complication because from the perspective of being a learner of Spanish, it obscures whether the object is indirect or direct. As an example, when presentar is used by a leísmo speaker, I find myself having to think carefully about who is being "presented" to whom. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6892 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 15 17 July 2006 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
True, and the trouble it possibly saves you by not having to think about direct or indirect is very marginal indeed, since you still have to master that side of things for all non-personal masculine, and all feminine cases. Edited by Hencke on 17 July 2006 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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