Indirect object and "le"?

Question

> La madre le lava la cara a la nina. In that sentence, why is the word "le" there? The sentence already has a indirect object ("a la nina"), but removing the "le" makes the sentence to sound unnatural. Does this sentence sound right? Why/why not?

Answer 1

In Spanish the indirect object pronoun (le, les, me, nos, te, os) always has to be included regardless of whether or not the indirect object is specifically named. Also remember if the direct object (la cara) is not specifically named the le changes to se. So in your example sentence you would write “se la lava” (se refers to la niña, while la refers to la cara).

Answer 2

In Spanish, the indirect object pronoun is required, whereas in English it is not. That is to say that in Spanish it’s required to put “le” or another appropriate pronoun, and the other part (“a la niña“) is the optional one. That’s why “La madre le lava la cara” is acceptable, assuming both the speaker and the one who’s listening understand who that “le” is. If you want to be more specific about who’s having their face washed, “La madre le lava la cara a la niña“ is also acceptable. “La madre lava la cara a la niña“ is grammatically incorrect, as it misses the inderect object pronoun “le.”