Spanish Sentences - Business Spanish

We have learned that direct objects can be expressed by pronouns ("it" or "them"). The pronoun used must match the noun which is being replaced. Here are the forms.

lo la
los las

Remember that the direct object pronoun goes before the noun. Look at the following example.

I need the money.
Yo necesito el dinero.

I need it.
Yo lo necesito.

We have also spoken of indirect object pronouns. These are pronouns which are used to express the idea of "to someone". We use them when the verb suggests the idea of the trasfer of something to someone. Examples would be "to give", "to lend", "to send", etc. Here are the indirect object pronouns.

me
to me

te
to you (first name)

le
to him/her/you (sir, ma'm)

nos
to us

les
to them/you all

We have seen that the indirect object pronoun comes in front of the verb also. Look at this example.

Mary is giving us the money.
María nos da el dinero.

Now we want to take a look at a situation where we have both an indirect and a direct object pronoun in the same sentence. Look at the following example.

Mary is giving it to us.
María nos lo da.

Notice that the indirect pronoun "nos" which means "to us" comes first, followed by the direct pronoun "it". When we have two pronouns in a sentence in Spanish, the indirect object pronoun always comes first, then the direct object. Remember that learning to speak a language means learning to think the way that natives who speak the other language think. This includes the possibility of a different word order than what we find in English. Notice that what we are really saying here is,

Mary to us it is giving.

The same pattern would be true with "me" or "te". When we use "le" or "les", however, we have one more factor to consider. For reasons that go back to the evolution of Latin (which we don't want to get involved with here), it appears that people found it awkward to pronounce the combimations "le lo", "le la", "les lo", "les la", etc. "Le" and "les" evolved into "se" when followed by a direct object pronoun. Let's take a look at the following example.

John needs the money. Mary is giving it to him.
Juan necesita el dinero. María se lo da.

Let's learn some new words that we can use in sentences that follow this pattern.

la secretaria
the secretary

el abogado
the lawyer

los documentso
the documents

la carta
the letter

el cheque
the check

entregar
to hand over (deliver)

mandar
to send

dar
to give

vender
to sell

We have studied the forms and two uses of the verb "have". Here is the chart for "have".

yo tengo
I have

tú tienes
you have

él/ella tiene
he/she has

nosotros tenemos
we have

ellos/ellas tienen
they have

We use "have" primarily to express possession.

I have the money.

We also use "have" to express the idea of obligation. In this case, we are saying that someone "has to do" something. In Spanish, we use the "R" form of the verb, the infinitive, just like we do in English. However, we put the word "que" in front of the infinitive.

Mary has to work in the office tomorrow.
María tiene que trabajar en la oficina mañana.

There is a third use of the word "have" in English. This is when we say that someone "has done" something. In this case, in Spanish, we use a completely different word for "have". Here are the forms of "have" which we use to say "has done".

yo he
I have

tú has
you have

él/ella ha
he/she has

nosotros hemos
we have

ellos/ellas han
they have

We use this form of "have" with a form of the verb which is called the participle. In English this is the third form you learned for each verb in English class, such as "see, saw, seen".

The third form, "seen" is the form we use with "have". We can say, "I have seen", "you have seen", etc.

In Spanish the participle is formed by adding "-do" to the end of the verb. For "A" category verbs, this means that the verb will end in "-ado". In the case of "E" verbs, the ending of the participle will be "-ido". Here are some examples.

hablar hablado

dar dado

vender vendido

llevar llevado

Let's see how these verb forms work in the patterns that we have just worked with.