Irregular verbs —'dar'
Dar is unique among Spanish verbs in the preterite. It is an '-ar' verb that takes '-er' preterite verb endings.
- di
- diste
- dio
- dimos
- disteis
- dieron
Phonetic substitution — Spanish hates L+L
Theoretically, "I gave it to him" should be translated to "le lo di", but Spanish won't tolerate the repeated Ls — so the indirect object ('le' in this case) is transposed to 'se', e.g. "sel o di".
More examples
- "I give it to them — becomes "se lo di"
- "I give them to him — becomes "se los di"
Ambiguous indirect object pronouns
Since 'se' in the context of giving could mean 'he', 'she', 'it', 'you (formal)', 'you all (formal), them (male, female, neuter), you often need to distinguish between them. Which you do by using the standard for (e.g. "se lo di"), but append 'a' + the explicit personal pronoun, e.g. "se lo di, a ustedes".
In effect, we repeat the "to you" (pl. formal) part.
But if you don't want to repeat, you could often use 'para' — e.g. "lo compró para ellos".
When you say "a + pronoun" in this situation, the 'a' doesn't exclusively mean 'to me' — it could mean 'for me', 'from me' or any similar preposition, etc.
Learning Tasks Checklist
| Task | M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word/phrase aural+oral | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Sentence aural+oral | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ||||
| Socratic aural+oral | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ||||
| Verb exercises | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ||||
| Pronoun exercises | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ||||
| Preposition exercises | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ||||
| Reading | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ||||
| Physical exercise | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ||||
| Non-subbed video | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ||||
| Subbed video | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Research lang. learning | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | List 'issues' | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | Prepare materials | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |