Breakdown of A mi hermana se le da muy bien explicar el significado de las palabras difíciles.
mi
my
muy
very
difícil
difficult
a
to
Questions & Answers about A mi hermana se le da muy bien explicar el significado de las palabras difíciles.
What does “se le da muy bien” literally mean, and what does it actually mean here?
Literally, “se le da muy bien” is something like:
- “It is given very well to her” or
- “It turns out very well for her.”
In real, idiomatic Spanish, this structure means:
- “She is very good at (something).”
So:
This is a very common way in Spain to say that someone has a natural talent or is skilled at an activity.
Why is there an “a” before “mi hermana”? Why not just “Mi hermana se le da…”?
The “a” introduces an indirect object (the person affected by the situation):
- A mi hermana = “To my sister”
In this construction, the person who is good at something is treated as an indirect object:
Grammatically, you need both:
- The full phrase with “a”: a mi hermana
- The matching indirect object pronoun: le
So you get:
- A mi hermana se le da muy bien…
You could drop “a mi hermana” if the context is very clear and just say “Se le da muy bien…”, but then “le” would still refer to someone already known from context.
Why do we have both “se” and in ? What does each pronoun do?