Pronouns without panic

Once a thing or person has been mentioned, Spanish replaces it with a direct object pronoun. It answers "what?" or "whom?" and agrees with the noun it replaces:

• lo — masculine singular (el libro → lo)

• la — feminine singular (la sopa → la)

• los / las — plural (los tomates → los, las llaves → las)

The English-speaker trap is word order. English says "I see it"; Spanish says lo veo, with the pronoun before the conjugated verb. Veo lo is never correct. In a negative sentence, no goes first: no lo veo.

The other trap is gender. "It" has no gender in English, but in Spanish you must look back at the noun: a jacket is la chaqueta, so "I never wear it" is nunca la uso.

For people, lo and la mean "him" and "her". In Spain you will often hear le for a man (le vi ayer); that is accepted there, but lo works everywhere.

How to decide: find the noun "it" or "them" refers to, check its gender and number, and put the pronoun right before the verb.

Indirect object pronouns mark the person who receives something or benefits from an action. They answer "to whom?" or "for whom?":

• me (to me), te (to you), le (to him, her, or you formal)

• nos (to us), les (to them, or to you all)

Like direct object pronouns, they go before a conjugated verb: le mandé flores (I sent her flowers), me hizo una pregunta (he asked me a question).

The English-speaker trap: English often hides the recipient. "I gave them an exam" and "I gave an exam to them" are the same in Spanish: les di un examen. Look for any person who receives, hears, gets told or gets asked something. Verbs like dar, mandar, decir, preguntar, prestar and contar almost always want one.

Spanish also likes to say the pronoun even when the person is named: le escribí a mi abuela. It sounds redundant to English ears, but it is what natives say.

Note that le does not change for gender: "to him" and "to her" are both le. In Spain, os means "to you all" among friends; elsewhere, les covers it.

With one conjugated verb, the pronoun goes in front: lo veo. But when a conjugated verb is followed by an infinitive or a gerund, Spanish gives you a choice. You can attach the pronoun to the end of the second verb:

• quiero verla (I want to see it)

• voy a lavarlo (I'm going to wash it)

• estoy leyéndolo (I'm reading it)

Or you can put it before the whole chain: la quiero ver, lo voy a lavar, lo estoy leyendo. Both are correct everywhere. What you cannot do is put it in the middle: quiero la ver is wrong.

When you attach a pronoun to a gerund, the stress must stay where it was, so you add a written accent: leyendo → leyéndolo, haciendo → haciéndolo. Infinitives do not need one with a single pronoun: verla, comprarlo.

The English-speaker trap is following English order and splitting the pair, or forgetting the pronoun entirely ("I want to see" with nothing after it). If English has "to … it" or "-ing … it", reach for the attached form: it keeps the verb and its pronoun together, just as English does.

When a sentence has both a receiver and a thing, and both are already known, Spanish uses two pronouns. The order is fixed: indirect before direct, person before thing.

• me lo dio — he gave it to me

• te la mando — I'll send it to you

• nos los prestaron — they lent them to us

Both pronouns sit together before a conjugated verb, or are attached together to an infinitive, gerund or affirmative command: ¿puedes mandármelos?, devuélvemelo. Attaching two pronouns usually needs a written accent to keep the stress in place.

The trap is using two pronouns when the thing is new information. "Who gave you that watch?" names the watch for the first time, so Spanish says ¿quién te dio ese reloj? Only when the watch is already on the table — "Nice watch! Who gave it to you?" — do you say ¿quién te lo regaló?

How to decide: if English says "it" or "them" and "to me / to you / to us", you need both pronouns, in that order. The thing pronoun must still match the gender of the noun: a recipe is la receta, so nos la dio.

English says "I dropped the plate", which sounds as if you did it. Spanish usually describes accidents as things that happened to you:

• se me cayó el plato — I dropped the plate (literally, the plate fell, and it happened to me)

• se nos escapó el perro — the dog got away from us

• se le rompieron las gafas — her glasses broke

The pattern is se + indirect pronoun (me, te, le, nos, les) + verb + the thing. The verb agrees with the thing, not the person: se me cayó el vaso, but se me cayeron los vasos.

Common verbs: caerse (drop), romperse (break), olvidarse (forget), perderse (lose), ocurrirse (occur to, have an idea), escaparse (get away), acabarse (run out).

The English-speaker trap is translating "I dropped" as dejé caer, which means you let it fall on purpose. Likewise rompí el vaso suggests you broke it; se me rompió says it simply happened.

Some of these have a plain alternative that is also correct (olvidé las llaves), but for falling, escaping and ideas popping into your head, the se me form is what natives say. In Latin America glasses are usually lentes; in Spain, gafas.

Spanish does not allow le lo or les la. When the indirect pronoun le or les comes right before lo, la, los or las, it changes to se:

• le di las llaves → se las di (I gave them to her)

• les mando el informe → se lo mando (I'll send it to them)

This se has nothing to do with reflexive verbs. It is just le or les in disguise, so it can mean to him, to her, to you (formal), to them or to you all.

Because se hides who the receiver is, natives sometimes add a phrase for clarity: se lo di a ella, se lo expliqué a usted. That is optional when the context is clear.

The English-speaker trap is producing le lo, or dropping one pronoun and saying le di or lo di. When English says "it to her" or "them to him" about something already mentioned, you need both, and the first one is always se.

A note from Latin America: when the receiver is plural, many speakers move the plural onto the second pronoun, se los dije for "I told it to them". You will hear it, but se lo dije is the standard form.

When the direct object of a verb is a specific person, Spanish puts a in front of it. English has no word for this, so learners leave it out:

• veo a María (I see María)

• busco a mi hermano (I'm looking for my brother)

• ¿conoces a la nueva vecina? (do you know the new neighbour?)

It also applies to pets you treat as individuals: saco al perro (I take the dog out). Note that a + el contracts to al.

It does not apply to things (veo la casa), or usually to people you have not identified yet: busco un electricista (any electrician will do), but busco al electricista (the one who came yesterday). With tener, it normally disappears too: tengo dos hermanos.

The trap is that the sentence still makes sense without it, so your ear does not warn you. Train the question: is the thing receiving the action a particular person or animal? If yes, add a. Verbs that almost always take a person object, such as visitar, conocer, ayudar, llamar, esperar and buscar, are the usual places to slip.