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...okay that took a second
Duolingo sentence: "Ellos hacen las tareas domésticas. La ropa nos la lava Luis, y el baño nos lo limpia Alberto."
The first sentence was okay (they do the housework) but I couldn't parse the second. Even with the answer (Luis washes our clothes, and Alberto cleans out bathroom") I was confused, because "La ropa nos" for "our clothes" didn't seem right. "Nuestra ropa", sure. "La ropa de nosotros", sure. But id never seen "nos" as a possessive.
...Which in fact it isn't. The nos belongs to the verb. It's not [the clothes of ours] [Luis washes them], it's [the clothes] [Luis washes them for us].
Part of the confusion for me was figuring out the inverted sentence structure. "Luis nos lava la ropa" would have been clearer (to me). But I forget that Spanish can throw the subject at the end, and I forget that the object can be first. Somehow I don't have a problem with the gustar-type verbs that "flip" subj/obj from the English counterparts, but yoinking around the parts of "normal" verbs catches me every time.
And part was that I forget that you can tack on optional indirect object pronouns to indicate who benefits. Because English tends to explicitly use "for us", I tend to go for "[subject] [verbs] para nosotros" rather than "[subject] nos [verbs]".
So the two together was just ... bluescreen brain.
I think I did, for once, notice that the lack of personal a meant Luis and Alberto weren't the direct objects, although the thought of "La ropa lava a Luis" kinda cracks me up; and I could at least get the word-for-word translation ("the clothes us it washes Luis"); but I was just about to post asking for help when it clicked.
Languages are weird sometimes :)
The first sentence was okay (they do the housework) but I couldn't parse the second. Even with the answer (Luis washes our clothes, and Alberto cleans out bathroom") I was confused, because "La ropa nos" for "our clothes" didn't seem right. "Nuestra ropa", sure. "La ropa de nosotros", sure. But id never seen "nos" as a possessive.
...Which in fact it isn't. The nos belongs to the verb. It's not [the clothes of ours] [Luis washes them], it's [the clothes] [Luis washes them for us].
Part of the confusion for me was figuring out the inverted sentence structure. "Luis nos lava la ropa" would have been clearer (to me). But I forget that Spanish can throw the subject at the end, and I forget that the object can be first. Somehow I don't have a problem with the gustar-type verbs that "flip" subj/obj from the English counterparts, but yoinking around the parts of "normal" verbs catches me every time.
And part was that I forget that you can tack on optional indirect object pronouns to indicate who benefits. Because English tends to explicitly use "for us", I tend to go for "[subject] [verbs] para nosotros" rather than "[subject] nos [verbs]".
So the two together was just ... bluescreen brain.
I think I did, for once, notice that the lack of personal a meant Luis and Alberto weren't the direct objects, although the thought of "La ropa lava a Luis" kinda cracks me up; and I could at least get the word-for-word translation ("the clothes us it washes Luis"); but I was just about to post asking for help when it clicked.
Languages are weird sometimes :)