Te la compro. I do not understand the logic behind it

Emanuel B.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Te la compro. I do not understand the logic behind it

Asked 5 years ago
Emanuel B.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Could you please elaborate. How would you say I buy it for you?

InmaNative Spanish expert teacher in Kwiziq

Hola Emanuel

In this sentence:

"Me encanta tu chaqueta. Te la compro por 20 euros."

(I love your jacket. I'll buy it from you for 20 euros.)

If we analyse the second part "te la compro", we have "I buy" (compro), "it" (la) and that pronoun "te" can mean either "from you" ,"for you" or "to you", or even "on you". In this case, we can see by the context that it means "from you". Take this other sentence for example where "te" means "for you":

"Si te gusta mucho esa chaqueta, yo te la compro" -> If you really like that jacket I'll buy it for you.

Here are other sentences doing the same thing:

Tengo su número de teléfono. Me lo dio Cristina. (I've got his number. Cristina gave it to me.)

Tu madre te puso un sombrero. (Your mum put a hat on you)

Le escribí una canción. (I wrote a song to him/for him)

I hope this helps.

Saludos

Inma

 

 

Te la compro. I do not understand the logic behind it

Sign in to submit your answer

Don't have an account yet? Join today

Ask a question

Find your Spanish level for FREE

Test your Spanish to the CEFR standard

Find your Spanish level
Getting that for you now...