Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hola! 

I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the purpose of doubling down on the indirect object usage in some of these examples:

"Ella le envió un regalo a Miguel. 

She sent a present to Miguel."

In this example, why do you need the le if you already have Miguel. It reads to me literally as "she him sent a present to Miguel" and I suppose it feels like excessive and unnecessary additional language in an already clear sentence. Is it for emphasis? Por favor ayúdame a entender.

I would've said estos without it, but it made me second guess myself and put este. What is this hint trying to say? I'm not understanding how I misinterpreted it. 

Preferir... que... just means: prefer... than... .Doesn't it?

Preferir... en vez de... means: prefer... rather than.... Why? I don't understand.

Thank you so much

Entender means understand, but in this example: Ella entiende de arte. - means: She knows about art. Why?

Thank you so much!

Am I missing where the English translation is? I can't imagine I would need to copy/paste the entire passage (and only at the end, when it's available) and go to another site to find the translation. That would be silly since this site is presumably designed to teach me Spanish..? 

Is there a rule for determining the Spanish ending for someone that does a profession? For example, a climber is escalador, and a traveler is viajero. Why is one ending in -or and the other -ero? 

There's a link to 'idioms about time' but there isn't anything to learn or do on that page. Is there a link that works for that subject? 

And all this time, going through 1, 2 and 3, I thought the lifeguard was a girl! Inma, you need to speak a little more gruffly, please LOL

C'mon señoritas! This tale is wide open for at least one more chapter, maybe two.

Just when I thought I'd gotten the hang of gustar and verbs like it, along comes: Pues, me ha dicho Lola que le gustas a Ricardo. 

So, "me ha dicho Lola que" = "Lola told me that", "gustas" is second person singular as applies to "you" the person being spoken to, no? "le" is the Indirect Object for "to/by him", si? Is the "a" before "Ricardo" the personal "a" or the preposition "to" ? Entonces; "le gustas a Ricardo" = to him you are pleasing (Ricardo) ?? 

But Ricardo is the subject and I thought it would be "te gusta Ricardo" = Ricardo is pleased by you / you are liked by Ricardo. Does "gustas" refer to Ricardo or to Sonia and to whom would 3ra persona "gusta" apply?

But I'm thinking: 

Le gustas a Ricardo = to him you are pleasing (liked) by Ricardo (personal a ?) Ricardo likes you.

whereas: Te gusta Ricardo = By you is liked Ricardo. You like Ricardo.

HELP?? porfis . . .