# El premio se le dio a las vacas



## cedartree

Hi,

Please could I request some help with the following sentence:

El premio se le dio a las vacas

Specifically, I am struggling to understand the 'le'. Is it an indirect pronoun (referring to the cows) and if so should it be 'les' instead? Or is it a direct pronoun (referring to the prize) and if so should it be 'lo' instead?

Thanks,

D


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## Cholo234

cedartree said:


> Specifically, I am struggling to understand the 'le'. Is it an indirect pronoun (referring to the cows) and if so should it be 'les' instead? Or is it a direct pronoun (referring to the prize) and if so should it be 'lo' instead?



(I think you're right in asking whether _le_ should be _les_ instead.)

The noun _vacas_ appears as an indirect object, isn't it?

When there is a noun as indirect object, it's customary to accompany it with a so-called "redundant pronoun," _le or les.

Le _or_ les can be _used to represent any (1) person or (2) thing -- gaining from or losing by the action described by the verb.
_
A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish_


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## Rodal

This is the Spanish English forum where we offer translations, not grammatical questions.

First and foremost, the phrase is not well written in Spanish. It makes no sense to say "el premio se le dio a las vacas" as if the prize would by itself be given to the cows. The right construction is: Se le dio el premio a las vacas. ~ The prize was given to the cows.


Perhaps by seeing the translation you will find the answer you are seeking.


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## Bevj

Just to be clear,  your question _is_ in the right place, cedartree.  (And welcome!)
You are asking about a grammatical construction so the Grammar forum is fine.


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## Rodal

Bevj said:


> Just to be clear,  your question _is_ in the right place, cedartree.  (And welcome!)
> You are asking about a grammatical construction so the Grammar forum is fine.



OOPS, sorry, my bad .


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## S.V.

Like Cholo says, Indirect Objects are often "duplicated" (in almost every context, almost always being the more natural option or even necessary).

But because Spanish "repeats" the IO so much, and _le_ shows other confusions (like leísmo in _se le_, or _se los_ for a singular DO), _le_ is also used extensively for plural IOs (35.2k). So yes, _Le teme a las arañas, le dio algo a las vacas _would be common (±degree by region). Though it doesn't happen when_ les_ comes after the "real" IO.


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## User With No Name

S.V. said:


> Though it doesn't happen when_ le_ comes after the "real" IO.


So you definitely reject "El premio se le dio a las vacas"? I always try to make IO pronouns agree, and I totally trust your judgment, but it doesn't sound impossible to me (non-native).



Rodal said:


> It makes no sense to say "el premio se le dio a las vacas" as if the prize would by itself be given to the cows.


And in any case, isn't "El premio se *les* dio a las vacas" a perfectly good (if perhaps somewhat unusual) sentence?


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## S.V.

Oh no, by "after" I meant "_A las vacas se *les* dio ese premio_", which would never go with _le_ (just doesn't happen). Both DOs and IOs are almost always duplicated, when it's *VERB* after *SUBJ* (so *changed order = redundant pronoun*; there are a few more rules for normal sentences).

_El premio se le dio a las vacas _could be said by natives, yes. Notice Rodal just changed the position, without correcting _les_ . Hm, the NGLE mentions this_ le _has become very common. And it's not like other errors, which do carry some stigma (like _reducieron, cafeces, haiga_, etc.).

This one goes unnoticed. At the root is, I think, if we have to "introduce" every single IO with_ le_, at some point a plural mark becomes a burden, as it requires knowing beforehand whether it's plural/singular. And oral Spanish rejects thinking ahead! In favor of leaving 10 _ques_ and other clauses as it goes.


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## User With No Name

S.V. said:


> Oh no, by "after" I meant "_A las vacas se *les* dio ese premio_", which would never go with _le_ (just doesn't happen). Both DOs and IOs are almost always duplicated, when it's *VERB* after *SUBJ* (so not the "normal" order in English / "preferred" order in Spanish).


Thanks. I misread your post.


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## Rodal

User With No Name said:


> So you definitely reject "El premio se le dio a las vacas"? I always try to make IO pronouns agree, and I totally trust your judgment, but it doesn't sound impossible to me (non-native).
> 
> 
> And in any case, isn't "El premio se *les* dio a las vacas" a perfectly good (if perhaps somewhat unusual) sentence?



I will give you some examples:

El inglés se me hizo fácil aprenderlo estando en Estados Unidos.
La Zumba se me da más fácil como deporte recreativo.

Al decir el preimo se les dio a las vacas da la impresión de que *se les dio *en el sentido de que fue algo fácil para ellas obtenerlo, 
en cambio se les dio el premio a las vacas tiene el sentido que se queire, ellas se ganaron el premio y este les fue otorgado.


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## S.V.

Hm yes, sometimes impersonal _se_ is more natural, when keeping an S-V-O order (thinking of _se _as the "subject", _premio_ comes after the verb).

Though I don't remember if the NGLE mentions it.


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## Peterdg

"Se" is an interpretation nightmare in Spanish.

In the apparently simple sentence: "el premio se le dio a las vacas", there are different interpretations possible for the "se" and hence also for the "le" and what is actually meant, is only known to the author of the sentence, I'm afraid.

1. It could be refexive, as was mentioned by Rodal :


Rodal said:


> It makes no sense to say "el premio se le dio a las vacas" as if the prize would by itself be given to the cows.


 but that doesn't really make much sense.

2. It could be a passiva refleja: a prize was given to the cows. Then the "le" should be interpreted as a redundant pronoun for the indirect object "the cows"; strictly speaking, it should then be "les" instead of "le" (because "cows" is plural), but then again, it is common practice in Spanish to replace the plural "les" by the singular "le" when the indirect object is explicitly mentioned (after the verb).

3. It could be an impersonal "se", less probable because it's about things, not people, but nevertheless possible: "One gave the prize to the cows".  In that case, "le" could even be a redundant pronoun for the direct object "el premio" as it appears before the verb and hence, should be replicated by a redundant pronoun. You could argue that it should then be "lo" (as "premio" is a masculine noun and for the direct object, you should use "lo" and not "le"). You would be right were it not that after an impersonal "se", the redundant direct object pronoun "lo" is often replaced by "le".

As you see: a nightmare.


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## cedartree

Thank you to everyone that has replied. The discussion has been very useful!


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## Aviador

I don't care how indulgent RAE and others may be, to me, what is wrong is wrong. Duplicating a plural complement by a singular pronoun is wrong, no matter how popular it may be, it's wrong.
To learn to use the correct pronoun in this kind of constructions is no quantum physics; it is actually, in part because its spotless coherence, one of the easiest things to grasp. There is no reason not to clearly advised against the use of the wrong pronoun.
My humble opinion.


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## User With No Name

Aviador said:


> I don't care how indulgent RAE and others may be, to me, what is wrong is wrong.


It's the difference between prescriptive and descriptive. I always try to make the pronoun and the noun agree when I speak (and, when I don't, it's just an error).

Having said that, I am absolutely interested in understanding why, and under what circumstances, even educated Spanish speakers find the lack of agreement acceptable.

And, I must say, I was reading a Carlos Fuentes novel not too long ago, and he regularly did the "DO pronoun agrees with IO noun" thing. (Les di el dinero a mis padres -> Se los di.) I don't like it much, but Carlos Fuentes knew how to craft a Spanish sentence, and if he did it...


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## Peterdg

Aviador said:


> To learn to use the correct pronoun in this kind of constructions is no quantum physics; it is actually, in part because its spotless coherence, one of the easiest things to grasp.


I agree with you. Spanish is not my native language and for me the "le"/"les" opposition is clear. Due to my history in learning Spanish, I am in touch with a lot of Spanish teachers here in Belgium: some of them native speakers, some of them not.

As an anecdote (I mentioned it already in some other post): I once read an article that was written by one of the teachers of a language school here in Belgium. When I saw her, I said I liked her article. She asked me how I knew she wrote it. I said that I could tell it was written by a native Spanish speaker and she was the only native Spanish teacher in that school. I knew because she used "le" where she should have used "les". That's something a non-native Spanish teacher would never do; the reduplication of the indirect object pronoun is already so alien to our non-native language feeling that we are very aware of how it works. We have to think about it; native speakers don't have to and that's, I guess, the reason why they use the "wrong" form.

 But I never told her how I could tell; she still doesn't know.


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## User With No Name

Peterdg said:


> I knew because she used "le" where she should have used "les". That's something a non-native Spanish teacher would never do; the reduplication of the indirect object pronoun is already so alien to our non-native language feeling that we are very aware of how it works. We have to think about it; native speakers don't have to and that's, I guess, the reason why they use the "wrong" form.


I completely agree, and have had similar experiences.

But what does it mean when the educated native speaker is doing it the "wrong" way, thereby distinguishing herself from the non-natives, who do it the "right" way? Much though I don't like it, I think we (well, not me, but native speakers and people in positions of authority) may have to start re-thinking which way is the "right" way.


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## Peterdg

User With No Name said:


> But what does it mean when the educated native speaker is doing it the "wrong" way, thereby distinguishing herself from the non-natives, who do it the "right" way? Much though I don't like it, I think we (well, not me, but native speakers and people in positions of authority) may have to start re-thinking which way is the "right" way.


Well, to answer that question, perhaps consider the fact that there are a lot of native Spanish speakers that do use it the "right" way.

EDIT:

Perhaps, some day, the RAE will decide that, due to the vast number of people that use the now "wrong" way, there are two acceptable possibilities: in some region option 1 and in other regions option 2. There are already quite some examples like that (especially with pronouns).


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## User With No Name

Peterdg said:


> Well, to answer that question, perhaps consider the fact that there are a lot of native Spanish speakers that do use it the "right" way.


True. And don't misunderstand me: I don't like the shift away from the traditionally correct agreement.

Still, I can't help suspecting that 50 years from now, this going to look a lot like the who/whom thing in English: grammarians versus everybody else.


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## Peterdg

I have edited my post just before you replied, adding some additional consideration.


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## User With No Name

Peterdg said:


> I have edited my post just before you replied, adding some additional consideration.


I don't think we disagree at all.


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## Peterdg

User With No Name said:


> I don't think we disagree at all.


I don't think so either.


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## Aviador

User With No Name said:


> It's the difference between prescriptive and descriptive...


I wouldn't refer to my position in this respect as "prescriptive", but normalizing, something that in these times of universal access to information can be a lot easier than in the past centuries when even literacy was the privilege of minute minority. "Prescriptive" sounds to me too close to "dictatorship", blind dictatorship as opposed to a reasoned election derived from study and common sense. The idea behind my view of this subject is to promote a solid foundation for our language based on conventions that would make it a more stable tool of communication. We can promote that normalization or let our language to disperse into as many dialects as speakers there are (an evident exaggeration on muy part that serves to illustrate the point). One of the best materials for those foundations, like in the particular case of the use of pronouns commented in this thread, is coherence, simple and intuitive coherence that anybody, after a simple explanation, can understand and apply. I honestly think that I am not asking too much.


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## User With No Name

Aviador said:


> I wouldn't refer to my position in this respect as "prescriptive", but normalizing,


I think we may be just arguing about terminology. Dictionaries and language books that describe correct usage of a language are generally called "prescriptive." It's not a negative term in itself.

And those of us who study Spanish as a foreign language often want to know both what is "correct" and what native speakers actually say. Sometimes, undeniably, there are differences.

Regarding the original issue (agreement of IO pronouns with nouns), to me, it's similar to a football game in which the side I hope will win and the side I think will win are not the same.

Un saludo.


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## nahaha

This thread has confused me now (even after reading the explanations, which are going over my head)! Can anybody just simply explain?...

*El premio se le dio a las vacas* - this seems technically INCORRECT. Is it not?
*El premio se les dio a las vacas *- this seems like it would be CORRECT. Is it not?


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## User With No Name

nahaha said:


> This thread has confused me now (even after reading the explanations, which are going over my head)! Can anybody just simply explain?...
> 
> *El premio se le dio a las vacas* - this seems technically INCORRECT. Is it not?
> *El premio se les dio a las vacas *- this seems like it would be CORRECT. Is it not?


You are exactly correct.

"Les" refers to "vacas," so it should be plural.

The discussion is happening because for whatever reason, many native speakers don't always make this agreement, so a lot of people would say "le," even though it refers to "vacas." The discussion is about under exactly what circumstances that "error" can happen, and whether it's becoming so common that at some point in the future it might not even be considered an error anymore.

By the way, as you continue your study of Spanish, you are going to find that a whole lot of things happen with object pronouns that don't necessarily correspond to the rules that basic grammar books teach.


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## Aviador

So it is easier for our non-native forum mates to see where the error is, let me translate this sentence in the following manner:

_El premio se *le* dio a *las vacas*_  →  _The prize was given to *the cows*, it was given to *it*._ 
_El premio se *les* dio a l*as vacas*_  → _The prize was given to *the cows*, it was given to *them*_.


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## MiguelitOOO

Si "las vacas" es una categoría, título de obra o grupo, entonces es "le". Pero seguramente no es así. Solo quise mencionarlo por si "quizas así fuera" (por si las moscas).


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