ysobel | (no subject)

...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.

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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.

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.