Help. I’m a bit puzzled. In the translations of sentences such as - " I met someone in the pub last night who said that he / she did so and so", I’m not hearing a he / she at all. I can’t hear anything to distinguish whether the ‘someone’ turns out to be a he or a she - if you see what I mean. Can anyone explain?
Thanks
Hello billigog,
Yes, I see what you mean, but in Spanish we don’t use the same construction as in English. Adding a pronoun where the English sentence does would not be grammatically correct.
In a normal conversation, the other person would ask “Ah si, quien era?” or “Que interesante, y como se
llama?”, so the name/gender would be revealed only then.
Hope this makes sense.
Take care,
Gaby
I just finished lessons 14 and 15 and was pondering this same question. Is it actually grammatically incorrect to include the pronoun, or just unneccessary? Obviously if the subject of the second clause is different from what one would expect, you need to include it. E.g. ‘El me dijo, que ella queria preguntarme algo’ But if the subject is in fact the expected, default value, is it still actually incorrect, or just awkward?
Hello Jeff,
“He said that he wanted to ask me something” / “El me dijo que queria preguntarme algo”
“He said that she wanted to ask me something” / "El me dijo que ELLA queria preguntarme algo”
As you say if the subject of the second clause is different, the pronoun needs to be included. I don’t think is incorrect to add EL in the first example, just awkward and redundant.
The case that billigog presented was different:
“someone in the pub last night who said that she wanted to meet you" / “alguien en el pub anoche que me dijo que queria conocerte”
In Spanish it sounds really awkward to add “she” in the second clause in this case, bacause it comes after
the “que dijo QUE”.
You can also use “quien” in more formal Spanish “alguien en el pub anoche QUIEN me dijo que queria conocerte” But in SSiS we try to include the expressions that you will naturally hear people using in spoken Spanish and “que dijo que” is more colloquial than “quien dijo que”.
Gaby
Hi Gaby:
Ah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up. I think I was just concentrating on getting through those long sentences, and not worrying whether alguien was male or femaile! Your explanation makes sense.
Hi Gaby and Jeff
Thanks very much. That was really helpful.
PS - billigog was was a made up username. (Gog is Welsh slang for a person who originates from the north of the country)
Wps, mae’n ddrwg da fi Bill! Doeddwn i ddim yn sylweddoli ei fod yn enw ffug.
Hwntw y fi 
Gaby
I’m currently rather loving how support threads in the Spanish forum end up morphing into Welsh 