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What is the Spanish "dativo de interés"
In Spanish there is a very specific use of the indirect object pronouns (me, te, le, nos, os, les) called "dativo de interés". This is when we use an indirect object pronoun to indicate that someone either benefits or loses out from something that happens.
For example:
As you can see, in the first 3 examples above there is someone losing out from what happens, and in the last example someone benefits from the action.
Sometimes there can be ambiguity, where the function of the indirect object pronoun it is not clear. Here is a typical example:
In this example we could be talking about two different things:
- somebody has bought a house "for us" as a gift
- or perhaps we are trying to sell our house and someone has finally bought it "from us".
The pronoun can indicate that there is a person/people affected "indirectly" by the event, not always clearly benefitting or losing out, but simply being "affected" by it, or it indicates that someone has an interest in this event. In this case, it is sometimes called "dativo ético".
There is normally no translation in English for the pronoun indicating the affected person.
For example:
A Manuel se le ha muerto el perro y el pobre está muy afectado.Manuel's dog died and poor thing, he is very affected by it.
Bear in mind that when used with conjugated pronominal verbs, the reflexive pronoun is placed before the indirect object pronoun (dativo), never the other way round:
Correct:
A Manuel se le ha muerto el perro.
Incorrect:
A Manuel le se ha muerto el perro.
See also Using the "accidental" reflexive (se) with an indirect object pronoun
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