(no subject)

[ysobel]

...ok I'm kinda confused.

Duo gave me a sentence that included "we have to thank him" (tenemos que agradecerle) and my brain screeched to a halt over the indirect object (-le, not -lo). English doesn't have different indirect/direct pronouns, but "him" sure felt like a direct object. Subject thanks object. And I looked it up and agredecer is a transitive verb, so why the pronoun...

???

Note to self, look that up.

Incidentally, helpful note for Duo folk: for refrigerator-magnet questions, where you're assembling sentences from provided words, there seem to always be four items left over. This won't help you find the *right* words, but e.g. if you have five left you probably left a word out.

...now if only there were a word count on freeform entry, lol. I have a bad habit of dropping estar (to be) from sentences structured as "to-be verbing". Duo asked for "we are buying them a ticket" and I typed "comprándoles un boleto" instead of "estamos comprándoles un boleto". Oops.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I don't know much about Spanish but in other languages I have studied, what might seem like a direct object in English is a different thing. Some of the other languages have more categories or cases than English (Russian has six cases).

Don't know if that's helpful or not.

[vass]

Incidentally, helpful note for Duo folk: for refrigerator-magnet questions, where you're assembling sentences from provided words, there seem to always be four items left over. This won't help you find the *right* words, but e.g. if you have five left you probably left a word out.

Maybe this depends on the size of your phone or the language or something. I've often had sentences that used all the words.