Lesson 23: Master Spanish Pronouns

The title of this lesson is Pronoun Power because in this video we're really going to power up our Spanish with the use of pronouns. Now, so far in the course we have stuck with the pronoun it, which in Spanish is this word lo, and we've been using this to say things like I have it, lo tengo, or I want to do it, quiero hacerlo. So now the pronoun is getting hooked onto the end because we have a full verb here, hacer, quiero hacerlo. Whereas, if we just have a conjugation of a verb, like we have here with tengo, then the pronoun will instead come up front behind that conjugated verb. When it comes to the placement of pronouns, this is how it works in Spanish. This doesn't only apply to lo, this will work the same for any other pronoun, and there are many other pronouns in Spanish. Here you can see a number of them on this slide, and believe me when I say this isn't even all of them. So we have lo, la, los, las, te, le, les, me, nos. It seems like quite a lot at first but once you break it down it's actually not too bad. Let's go through it one by one. Let's start with lo. As we know, this is the pronoun for it, but it has a double meaning because this is also what you would use for him. So to say I want to see him would be quiero verlo. Right, so this could mean I want to see it or I want to see him. It's usually clear based on the context which one you mean. How would you say she wants to see him? Quiere verlo. They need to see him today. Necesitan verlo hoy. We can see him now. Podemos verlo ahora. Something else that I want you to be aware of with this pronoun is that while this is also the pronoun it when referring to objects like a book or house, you're only going to use lo or it if the object is classified as masculine. For example, how do you say the book? El libro. So we know that this is masculine. So to say I want to see it, as in I want to see the book, then it's going to be quiero verlo. This brings us on to our next pronoun la because not only will this mean her but this will also stand for it. This is what you would use for feminine nouns. So how do you say the house in Spanish? La casa. So if you were to say I want to see it and by it you are referring to the house then it's going to be quiero verla because you're referring to a feminine noun, la casa. How would you say I want to see her? Quiero verla. I need to see her later. Necesito verla más tarde. Do you have it for him? ¿La tienes para él? It's not important and we don't need to see her. No es importante y no necesitamos verla. Let's look at our next set of pronouns. Los and las. These are very similar so let's look at them as a pair. Both los and las mean them. These are essentially the plural version of lo and la. We use los when referring to a male group or a mixed group whereas we'll go with las for a group of all females. How would you say I can see them? Let's assume it's a group of all males. Puedo verlos. What about a group of all females? How would you say it? I can see them. Puedo verlas. What about if it was a mixed group of males and females? I can see them. Puedo verlos. She can't see them. No puede verlas. Can you see them? ¿Puedes verlos? He wants to see them today. Quiere verlos hoy. Let's move on to our next pronoun. Te. This one is the pronoun for you. Te. How would you say I want to see you? Quiero verte. It's important and I need to see you today. Es importante y necesito verte hoy. The verb to say or to tell is the same in Spanish. The verb is decir. How would you say I have to tell you? Tengo que decirte. We can tell you later. Podemos decirte más tarde. Next on the list is this pronoun Le. This one will probably seem the most odd to you. It stands for to him or to her. Now, there are a group of verbs in Spanish that tend to use Le. The verb we just learned, decir, is one of those verbs. So, for example, here we have Now, for him, you're not going to use Lo because Spanish literally sees this as I want to tell to him. So, this is where you're going to use that pronoun Le. So, it would be I want to say or to tell to him. Quiero decirle. How would you say I want to tell her? Same again. Quiero decirle. Because Le stands for to him or to her. It has a double meaning. How would you say it's important and I have to tell her? Es importante y tengo que decirle. They want to tell you something. Quieren decirte algo. We can't tell you here. The next pronoun we have is Les, and you can probably guess what this one is. It's the same as the last one, but instead of to him or to her, it's to them. It doesn't matter if it's a male group or a female group. This covers all of that. So, this means to them. How would you say I have to tell them? Tengo que decirles. I want to tell them something important. Do you have to tell them today? Tienes que decirles hoy? On to the next one. Here we have Me. This one is very obvious. It stands for me. It's the exact same spelling. It's simply a change of pronunciation. Me. How would you say he wants to see me? Quiere verme. They don't want to see me. No quieren verme. Do you want to see me today or tomorrow? Quieres verme hoy o mañana? She wants to tell me something. Quiere decirme algo. Last but not least is the pronoun Nos. This stands for us. Nos. How would you say he wants to see us? Quiere vernos. She doesn't want to tell us. No quiere decirnos. Can't they see us today? No pueden vernos hoy? What about this last one? She wants to see us today to talk about it. For about it, the phrase is TE ELLO. Quiere vernos hoy para hablar de ello.