Spanish dativo de interés - specific use of Spanish indirect object pronouns

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".

For example:

See also Using the "accidental" reflexive (se) with an indirect object pronoun