AboutLaurel L. Expertise I can answer questions related to the Spanish language and grammar. Most of my training was in Castillian Spanish (from Spain), but I have had some exprerience working with Mexican-Spanish and some South American Spanish as well. I can help with grammar points, verb conjugations, and translations. I also am familiar with traveling and cultural points in Spain and parts of Mexico.
Experience I have a B.A. in Spanish, and I've been studying Spanish for 14 years now. I'm in my 6th year of teaching Spanish. I studied abroad for a summer in Spain and have visited Spain two other times for several weeks to a month at at time. I've also done volunteer work and translations in Mexico on three occasions.
Education/Credentials I have a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Toledo.
I have a B. Ed. in Education from the University of Toledo.
I studied for a semester in Spain at la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
Question I am very confused when "le" is required and when it is optional. Some sentences from Rosetta Stone Spanish Level 2 follow below. Can you help me understand why "le" is used in some cases and not in others, and whether it is required or optional in each case? Thanks! (The rule about asking whether you would use "to" in English doesn't seem to work in these cases.)
• La mujer le cepilla el pelo al hombre. <<"Le" is used for brushing hair.
• La mujer peina el pelo al hombre. <<"Le" is not used for combing hair.
• Alguien le corta el pelo al hombre. <<"Le" is used for cutting hair.
• Se le va a caer el plato. <<I assume "se" is here because "caerse" is the verb for drop. But why is "le" here? Wouldn't the sentence make sense without it?
Best regards, --Konrad
Answer "Le" is an indirect object pronoun that means to or for him/her (or you in the Usted form). So, if a person is brushing another person's hair, you can use the "le" before the verb to show it's being done to someone else.
Now the rules for how frequently "le" is used can vary. Some books and scholars say that to be grammatically correct, you should always use "le" when talking about doing something to another person, whether or not you clarify elsewhere in the sentence who the person is (like "al hombre"). These people would argue that the second example you gave should have included the "le" and been written: "La mujer le peina el pelo al hombre." If you want to err on the side of caution and be as grammatically correct as possible, then I would say to follow that rule. If you add in the "le", it's not certainly not incorrect.
Many people, especially when speaking informally, believe that if you use a clarification telling the person (again like "al hombre", "a Marta", "para Julio", etc.) you don't need the "le", rather it's optional. So they would argue that in the first example you gave it would also be acceptable to say "La mujer cepilla el pelo al hombre."
In your fourth example, this is an irregular that I wouldn't teach until probably 3rd level Spanish, but I'll go ahead and try to explain. This is considered part of the grammar explanation on impersonal se, which is considered the passive voice in English. The impersonal se is often used in Spanish to talk about unintentional events and soften any blame. It's like in English instead of putting the focus on Jose and saying, "Jose dropped the glasses," you could put the focus on the glasses and say, "The glasses were dropped" or "The glasses were dropped by Jose." So in Spanish, first they put the "Se", then the put the indirect object that agrees with whomever caused the unintentional event (like le for Jose). Then the verb actually agrees with the noun or object that follows it (so it's only used in the él/ella/Ud. or ellos/ellos/Uds. forms), rather than the person who did caused the action. So in my example, the verb would be conjugated in the plural ellos/ellas/Uds. form because we're talking about glasses, rather than using the él form for Jose. In Spanish it would look like "(A Jose) Se le cayeron los vasos."
I hope this helps, if not let me know and I can try to clarify further or give more examples. Good luck!
