Today we will learn about LO QUE and LO DE. Did you ever hear about these phrases? If you don’t know yet how to use them, our Spanish school El Rincón del Tándem provides you with useful tips in this blog 🙂
Today we are going to study the phrase LO QUE and LO DE. These two structures are commonly used in Spanish and replace other elements of a speech.
To begin with, The Spanish pronoun LO is very versatile and we can find it in many structures.
First of all, LO is a direct object pronoun (masculine singular). In a sentence it replaces a noun or noun phrase that works as direct complement. In other words, it refer to persons, animals or things that are the directly affected by the action expressed by a transitive verb.
Besides, LO is also frequently used in combination with QUE or DE. Those are very commonly used phrases in Spanish. They indicate something known to and previously mentioned by the people involved in the conversation.
So, let’s see in the details their use in Spanish language.
LO QUE
In this case, the structure replace “what”, “the thing that”. Please take a look at the examples below:
Non entiendo lo que me estás diciendo = I do not understand what you are saying
Esto no es lo que quería = This is not what I wanted
En esta pintura el artista expresa lo que siente = In this painting the artist expresses what he feels
LO DE
Also in this case, this phrase refers to an issue or an idea that the conversing people are aware of, because of a previous conversation or past experience.
Therefore, LO DE may be replacing anything: a fact, a story, an idea, a thing, etc.
In some cases, the English equivalent would be the story/business/thing about.
Examples:
¿Lo de irte a vivir al campo va en serio? = Is the business about your moving to the countryside for real?
Lo de ayer fue un pequeño error = The thing about yesterday was a small mistake
Al final, lo de Ana y Pablo resultó ser cierto = Finally the story about Ana and Pablo has turned out to be true
In some cases, LO DE just replaces things. See the examples below.
Lo de Pilar está guardado en el armario = Pilar’s things are stored in the closet
¡Coge lo tuyo y vámonos! = Take your things and let’s go
In other cases, this phrase refers to someone’s place.
Vamos a lo de Diego a pasar el fin de semana = We are going to Diego’s for the weekend
Voy a lo de mi hermana para celebrar su cumpleaños = I am going to my sister’s place to celebrate her birthday.
We hope our post has helped you better understand the use of LO QUE and LO DE. If you use these phrases while speaking Spanish, you will sounds more like a native speaker 😉
Finally, if you want to know more about Spanish grammar and language, our teachers would be very happy to welcome you at our Spanish school El Rincón del Tándem.
Click here to know more about our cheap Spanish courses in Valencia.
Stay tuned!
