[asiammyself]

Well im having trouble with these for example:
Ana María estudia el mapa. would that be: Ana María lo estudia...?
Also how about, Miguel escribe las direcciones para ir al hotel. would that be something like: Miguel la escribe las direcciones...? And one more, Yo aprendo los nombres de los monumentos de San José....could that be: Yo las aprendo los nombres...? I don't know if im getting the hang of these or not....

[Dr. Worm]

Originally Posted by asiammyself

Well im having trouble with these for example:
Ana María estudia el mapa. would that be: Ana María lo estudia...?
Also how about, Miguel escribe las direcciones para ir al hotel. would that be something like: Miguel la escribe las direcciones...? And one more, Yo aprendo los nombres de los monumentos de San José....could that be: Yo las aprendo los nombres...? I don't know if im getting the hang of these or not....

With direct object pronouns, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, let's think about how we do this in English, because there are really a lot of similarities. In English, to avoid redundancy, we use "it" or "them" to replace the nouns we are talking about. Does she study the map? Yes, she studies it. Did you read all of the books on the list? Yes, I read all of them. If the thing we're talking about is singular, we replace it with "it", and if it is plural, we replace it with "them".

In Spanish, we do basically the same thing. The direct object pronoun has to match the word it is replacing in number. The differences with Spanish are that it also has to agree in gender, and it usually has to go before the conjugated verb instead of after it.

So for your examples....

Ana María estudia el mapa. Ana María lo estudia.
This is perfect. "Mapa" is singular and masculine, so you use "lo" to replace it with, and you put "lo" before the conjugated verb. Awesome!

Miguel escribe las dirrecciones para ir al hotel.
Ok, what does this sentence mean, and what are we trying to get it to say? I´m assuming this is supposed to mean "Miguel writes the directions to go to the hotel." We are trying to get it to just say "Miguel writes them." What does "them" refer to? The directions. In Spanish, "las dirrecciones" are plural, and we know they are feminine (las dirrecciones, not los dirreciones). So we take the "las" (referring to las dirrecciones) and we put it before the verb: Miguel las escribe.

Yo aprendo los nombres de los monumentos de San José.
There are a lot of parts to this sentence. What is it actually saying? "I learn the names of the monuments of San Jose." So if we were to say, in English, I learn them, what does the "them" refer to? What do you learn? You learn the names. In Spanish, is "nombres" singular or plural? It´s plural. And is it masculine or feminine? We know it is masculine, because it says "los nombres", and not "las nombres". So the plural masculine pronoun we need to use is "los". We place it before the conjugated verb, and come up with: Yo los aprendo. I learn them.

Hope this helps, let me know if I just made it more confusing.

[MtlMom]

That was an awesome lesson, Dr. Worm. I don't speak Spanish, but I think I understand this quite well now!