Hi everyone Larry Lasagne here again with another question for you Spanish speakers. Does anybody know where I can find a list of Spanish verbs that take an indirect object i.e. telefonear a alguien? I know there are Spanish verbs that take an indirect object in Spanish whereas their English equivalents take a direct object. If I can find a list of these Spanish verbs I promise to learn them off by heart and never,ever mix up le/la again! Thanks to you all.

Hey LarryLasagne, BOY did this one get by me, just saw it today

Ok, the taking of the indefinite object has not to do with the verb but rather the indirect object (that recieves the action). The examples you used... "telefonear a..." is a little thingy we call the "personal a".

When the thing taking the action is a person or animal, we add the personal "a" and hence...

� �No pegues a tu hermano!
� Llama a Juan para ir al cine.
� No mates al gato (in this example the personal "a" is joined together with the definite article "el" as in "el gato" to give us "al".
� Qui�n va a cont�rselo a la jefa.

... and a zillion other examples.

Hope this helps.

Saludos,
jer...

Speaking of the le/la thing: Even though I am a former teacher of Spanish, I believe there is something call "le-ismo" in which "le" is used instead of la or lo when addressing an "usted" person, as a DIRECT OBJECT. This is a foggy old memory, all, can anyone confirm? I think it's one of those "sturdy indefensibles" akin to the English "it's me" used in the place of "It is I".

Le�smo- Is the use of le/les as direct object pronouns, instead of lo/los. Le�smo for people is accepted by the RAE; although, many native speakers use le/les for all masculine countable objects. The RAE only admits le�smo for male humans.

A Juan le veo. (correct/le�sta)
A Juan lo veo. (correct, I think this is less common among native speakers, at least in Spain.)

Los coches los veo.(correct)
Los coches les veo. (incorrect, but common)

Many of the members of the RAE are le�stas, so they don't always practise what they preach.

La�smo- Is the use of la/las as indirect object pronouns when speaking about females. It is incorrect according to the RAE, but is somewhat common even Miguel Delibes, a member of the RAE, is a la�sta.

La doy el libro.(incorrect, for a la�sta is it clear that the recepient of the book is female)

Le doy el libro. (correct for a recipient of either gender, but for a la�sta this implies a male recipient)

La�stas are almost always le�stas as well. A le�sta will always identify le/les with males, and la/las with females, and in this fashion there is less ambiguity with the object pronouns.

Jer, Enlighted us with some of your teaching insights.

Salu2

Wow...one of the most enlightening and interesting posts Ive ever read....I always wondered about this too....trying to memorize a list while i was frist learning, and then after being in Spain some time, trying to rely on what "sounded right", problem was, that most often both sounded right....guess this is why Thanks for the insight

Hey, shawn2, I am totally clear on that now! Thanks a lot!

HeHe I knew that if I waited long enough this tread would eventually crank up The thing I was getting at was the fact that in Spanish you have to say for example I telephoned to my sister (le telefonee a mi hermana) the le is an indirect object whereas in English the object(the sister) would be the direct object. Does this mean that if I said "la telefonee a mi hermana" is would be incorrect?