BASIC SPANISH: A GRAMMAR AND WORKBOOK

John writes a letter to his girlfriend./

John writes his girlfriend a letter.

Remember that in Spanish an a may also introduce the direct object of a verb when the
direct object is a person (the personal a – see above). So in the case of a sentence such as

Juan ve a María

the a does not mean ‘to’ and is simply introducing the direct object, since María is the
person directly affected by the verb – she is seen. Therefore a María would be replaced
by a direct object pronoun and not an indirect one:

Juan la ve.

As we have just seen with direct objects, indirect object can be replaced by a pronoun.
These pronouns are called indirect object pronouns:

John gave the letter to her.

or

John gave her the letter.

Once again, in Spanish the six pronouns correspond to the six persons of the verb:
1st person sing. me to me
2nd person sing. te to you (familiar sing.)
3rd person sing. le to him/her/it/you (polite sing.)
1st person pl. nos to us
2nd person pl. los to you (familiar pl.)
3rd person pl. les to them/to you (polite pl.)
e.g. He sends me a letter.
Me envía una carta.
We give you the news.
Os damos las noticias.

You will see that le can mean ‘to him’, ‘to her’, ‘to it’ and ‘to you’. Similarly, les can
mean ‘to them’, ‘to you’. If there is any uncertainty about the meaning of the pronoun it
is possible to use the forms: a él, a ella, a Vd., a ellos, a ellas and a Vds. after the verb
for clarification, but these forms can never replace the indirect object pronouns, le and
les:

Basic Spanish: A grammar and workbook 82