Learn all about non-prepositional Spanish indirect object pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola everybody. This is Dylan. |
| Carlos: What’s going on pod101 world? My name is Carlos. “Spanish Indirect Object Pronouns. Mom, She Scares Me.” In this lesson, you will learn about indirect object pronouns. |
| Dylan: This conversation takes place in a home. |
| Carlos: This conversation is between María, Carla, Amanda and Cristal. |
| Dylan: The speakers are strangers. Therefore the speakers will be speaking formally. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| MARIA: Carla, bienvenida a mi casa. |
| CARLA: Gracias. |
| MARIA: ¡Angelitos...! Carla, éstas son mis gemelas, Amanda y Cristal. |
| AMANDA: Muchacha, ¿por qué su nariz es tan grande? |
| CRISTAL: ¿La nariz?, no es nada, ¡mira esos dientes de tiburón que tiene! Mamá, me da miedo. |
| CARLA: Ah... son adorables... |
| And now, slowly. |
| Una vez más, esta vez lentamente. |
| MARIA: Carla, bienvenida a mi casa. |
| CARLA: Gracias. |
| MARIA: ¡Angelitos...! Carla, éstas son mis gemelas, Amanda y Cristal. |
| AMANDA: Muchacha, ¿por qué su nariz es tan grande? |
| CRISTAL: ¿La nariz?, no es nada, ¡mira esos dientes de tiburón que tiene! Mamá, me da miedo. |
| CARLA: Ah... son adorables… |
| And now, with the translation. |
| Ahora, incluimos la traducción. |
| MARIA: Carla, bienvenida a mi casa. |
| MARIA: Carla, welcome to my house. |
| CARLA: Gracias. |
| CARLA: Thank you. |
| MARIA: ¡Angelitos...! Carla, éstas son mis gemelas, Amanda y Cristal. |
| MARIA: Angellllllls! Carla, these are my twins, Amanda and Cristal. |
| AMANDA: Muchacha, ¿por qué su nariz es tan grande? |
| AMANDA: Miss, why is your nose so big? |
| CRISTAL: ¿La nariz?, no es nada, ¡mira esos dientes de tiburón que tiene! Mamá, me da miedo. |
| CRISTAL: Her nose? That's nothing. Look at those shark teeth she has! Mom, she scares me. |
| CARLA: Ah... son adorables... |
| CARLA: Uhhhh...they're adorable... |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Dylan: Yikes! I am scared. |
| Carlos: I will be scared too but isn’t it funny how like you know the mothers are angels, come on mama! |
| Dylan: Oh yeah, I mean like so not angels. |
| Carlos: Okay, clearly you know it’s like the – I think it’s all mothers not just like Latin mothers but in my experience, Latin American mothers tend to like not really understand their children or view them… |
| Dylan: Yeah. And she has no realization that these kids are so rude. |
| Carlos: Ah, she is being honest. Isn’t that sweet? |
| Dylan: Yeah. |
| Carlos: All right, but you know, that’s just the features of it. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Bienvenido, bienvenida”. |
| Carlos: “Welcome.” |
| Dylan: “Bien-ve-ni-do, bien-ve-ni-da”, “bienvenido, bienvenida”. |
| Dylan: “Ángel”. |
| Carlos: “Angel.” |
| Dylan: “Án-gel”, “ángel”. |
| Dylan: “Nariz”. |
| Carlos: “Nose.” |
| Dylan: “Na-riz”, “nariz”. |
| Dylan: “Dar miedo”. |
| Carlos: “To give fear.” |
| Dylan: “Dar mie-do”, “dar miedo”. |
| Dylan: “Adorable”. |
| Carlos: “Adorable.” |
| Dylan: “A-do-ra-ble”, “adorable”. |
| Dylan: “Dientes de tiburón”. |
| Carlos: “Shark teeth.” |
| Dylan: “Dien-tes de ti-bu-rón”. |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Dylan: The first word we will look at is “bienvenida”. |
| Carlos: Why a thank you for the nice welcome, Dylan? |
| Dylan: I know you would do that. “Bienvenida” is a feminine noun as well as an adjective that means “welcome.” |
| Carlos: Well, it’s a very polite thing to say when someone enters your home. |
| Dylan: Right, which is why María says “Carla, bienvenida a mi casa”. |
| Carlos: “Carla, welcome to my house.” |
| Dylan: I always get a warm feeling when I think about the word “welcome.” |
| Carlos: Yeah, it’s one of those words. It just is comforting, isn’t it? |
| Dylan: You know, Carlos? Estás bienvenido a nuestra casa siempre. |
| Carlos: Thank you, Dylan. You are always welcome in my house as well. |
| Dylan: A related noun is pretty simple. |
| Carlos: Right, “la bienvenida”, “the welcome.” |
| Dylan: Now to every parent, their children are... |
| Carlos: “Little angels.” |
| Dylan: “Angelitos”. |
| Carlos: That’s right. I find it funny that María calls her children “angelitos” which is diminutive of “angel” when on the phone in the last lesson, she’s described them as being what can I say, a handful? |
| Dylan: Yeah well, you will see when you are a parent. I understand why she calls them loudly “angelitos”. |
| Carlos: “Little angels.” I just remember when I was a teacher and the parents were so blind. You know I remember one parent told me, “no, no, no you don’t know my child.” |
| Dylan: And what did you say back? |
| Carlos: No, no, no I am sorry. I don’t think you know your child. |
| Dylan: Ah, that’s so cold. |
| Carlos: It’s good too but sometimes they get frustrated and I wasn’t right for saying it and I will omit that. |
| Dylan: But we all know that “Los angelitos son niños con alas”. |
| Carlos: “The little angels are children with wings.” How cute! You know they have harps too. |
| Dylan: Well, yeah, they do. |
| Carlos: You know how would you call somebody “angelic”? |
| Dylan: The adjective “angelical”. |
| Carlos: I will keep note of that one. |
| Dylan: Next up, “nariz”. |
| Carlos: “Nose”, a feminine noun. At first, I thought it was a masculine noun but I was wrong. |
| Dylan: It is a mistake. |
| Carlos: Yeah, like the little angel Amanda makes when she says “¿por qué su nariz es tan grande?” |
| Dylan: “Why is your nose so big?” |
| Carlos: Got to love the honesty of children. |
| Dylan: Hey, if you are going to be a nanny, you need a thick skin like that. |
| Carlos: True but whenever I think of a nose or big nose, I always think of my favorite children’s story. |
| Dylan: Which is? |
| Carlos: Pinoccio. |
| Dylan: One of my favorites too. |
| Carlos: “A Pinocho le crecía la nariz cuando mentía”. |
| Dylan: “Pinoccio’s nose would grow when he lied.” Hey Carlos, instead of relating “nariz” to a body part, what do you do with your nose? |
| Carlos: I see where you are going with this and that would be the verb “oler”, “to smell.” |
| Dylan: Nice one and man, is that verb ever irregular in the present tense. |
| Carlos: What “Huelo”, “I smell”? Yeah but I do smell but yeah it is you know but let’s keep it for some future grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Dylan: “Dientes de tiburón”. |
| Carlos: “Shark’s teeth.” |
| Dylan: So not only that these kids say this woman had a big nose but now... |
| Carlos: “¡Mira esos dientes de tiburón que tiene!” |
| Dylan: “Look at those shark teeth she has”, such charming children. |
| Carlos: I was like that when I was a child. |
| Dylan: I think you can call that rude. |
| Carlos: I would like to think I was precautious. |
| Dylan: Well, of course you would. |
| Carlos: But yeah having shark’s teeth is not a good look. |
| Dylan: Not at all. |
| Carlos: “Los dientes de tiburón son muy filosos”. |
| Dylan: “Shark teeth are very sharp.” |
| Carlos: Now this phrase is interesting. |
| Dylan:”Dar miedo”. |
| Carlos: “To give fear.” |
| Dylan: Right. So when we heard Cristal say “Mamá, me da miedo”. |
| Carlos: “She scares me.” |
| Dylan: “She gives me fear.” We see that the work of the verb “dar”, “to give”, and then the noun “miedo”, “fear.” |
| Carlos: I see. |
| Dylan: “A mí me da miedo ver películas de terror”. |
| Carlos: Watching horror movie scares me too, Dylan. |
| Dylan: But you could also give embarrassment with “dar vergüenza”, “shame”, with “dar lástima”. |
| Carlos: I will try to avoid getting all of those things. |
| Dylan: This I love, a little bit of sarcasm. |
| Carlos: Right. The adjective being used here is “adorables”. |
| Dylan: “Son adorables…” “They are adorable.” |
| Carlos: And do you think that Carla really believes that? |
| Dylan: No, not at all which is why I like the sarcasm. |
| Carlos: But I am not being sarcastic when I say “tu hija es muy adorable”. |
| Dylan: Oh thank you, Samba is adorable. She is the light of my eye. |
| Carlos: Could I also call her “linda” |
| Dylan: If you call my daughter either of those, you are telling the truth. |
| Carlos: You like the confidence there audience, don’t you? |
| Dylan: Carlos, what is an indirect object? |
| Carlos: An indirect object, Dylan, is to whom or for whom the action of a verb is carried out. |
| Dylan: Now that we’ve established what an indirect object is, what is the function of a pronoun? |
| Carlos: Once again, the function of a pronoun is that it takes the place of a noun. |
| Dylan: So check this out. When the noun that’s acting as an indirect object is replaced by a pronoun, do you know what it’s called? |
| Carlos: Why Dylan? Then we have the beast called indirect object pronouns. |
| Dylan: In English, indirect object pronouns are... |
| Carlos: “Me”, “you”, “him”, “us”, “them.” |
| Dylan: Let’s see how these translate into Spanish. |
| Carlos: Indirect object pronouns receive the verbal action indirectly. So they don’t tell us what happened but rather for whom it happened or to what it happened. |
| Dylan: But watch out audience. What can be tricky about learning these in Spanish is that they usually don’t require prepositions. |
| Carlos: If you are confused, “tranquilo”, we will clear it up quickly. |
| Dylan: Depending on the placement of one of these words, these indirect object pronouns and the context in general, we will understand the prepositional meaning implicit in the pronominal phrase. |
| Carlos: Let’s go through them. |
| Dylan: “Me”. |
| Carlos: “To for me.” |
| Dylan: “Te”. |
| Carlos: “To for you”, informal. |
| Dylan: “Le”. |
| Carlos: “To for him”, “to for her”, “to for you”, formal. |
| Dylan: “Nos”. |
| Carlos: “To for us.” |
| Dylan: “Os”. |
| Carlos: “To for you all”, informal. |
| Dylan: “Les”. |
| Carlos: “To for you all”, masculine, feminine formal. |
| Dylan: Let’s see how these work. |
| Carlos: Sample sentences, please. |
| Dylan: “Ella me dijo que vendría esta noche”. |
| Carlos: “She said to me that she will come tonight.” |
| Dylan: “Te daré todo lo que tengo.” |
| Carlos: “I will give you all that I have.” |
| Dylan: “A Mariana la universidad le mandó su diploma”. |
| Carlos: “The University sent Mariana her diploma.” |
| Dylan: “Me es difícil creer que usted no pueda hacer nada”. |
| Carlos: “It’s hard for me to believe that you can’t do anything.” |
| Dylan: “Me es interesante escuchar lo que me cuentas”. |
| Carlos: “It’s interesting for me to listen to what you tell me.” |
| Dylan: “Que las vacaciones te sean gratas”. |
| Carlos: “May the holidays be enjoyable for you.” |
| Dylan: In our example from today’s conversation... |
| Carlos: When Crystal says “me da miedo”. |
| Dylan: “She scares me.” |
| Carlos: The above sample sentences are written up to show the indirect object with a preposition in English but many times there is no preposition. |
| Dylan: Which can cause a problem for Spanish language learners. |
| Carlos: For example, “she told me that she would come tonight”, where “me” is the indirect object even though it may look like the direct object. |
| Dylan: You can always figure out the indirect object by asking to, for, whom, what something is done. |
| Carlos: Like, what you have learned here? Want to learn more about pronouns? |
| Dylan: You should definitely study direct object pronouns and possessive pronouns to get a clearer view of the big picture. |
| Carlos: For example, “me es grato tenerte, eres mío”. Here the indirect object pronoun is “me” as in “me es grato”. The direct object pronoun is “te” as in “tenerte”, and the possessive pronoun is “mío” as in “eres mío”. |
| Dylan: Trust us. Once you get each of these under your belt, everything will become a lot clearer. |
| Carlos: It just did for me actually when I just did that. |
| Dylan: Awesome. |
Outro |
| Carlos: That just about does it for today. ¡Nos vemos! |
| Dylan: ¡Chao! |
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