Breakdown of El asistente a quien le doy el mensaje es un contacto importante.
ser
to be
un
a, an (masculine)
el mensaje
the message
importante
important
a
to
dar
to give
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
quien
whom / who (relative singular)
el asistente
the assistant
el contacto
the contact
Questions & Answers about El asistente a quien le doy el mensaje es un contacto importante.
Why do we use a quien here instead of just que?
In Spanish, when a relative pronoun (like "who" or "whom") refers to a person and comes right after a preposition (like a, de, con, or en), we must use quien (singular) or quienes (plural). Here, the preposition is a (to), so we use a quien (to whom).
Why is there a le before doy? Doesn't a quien already tell us who is receiving the message?
It does, but Spanish has a very common rule! Whenever an indirect object (the person receiving the action) is mentioned, Spanish often requires us to include the matching indirect object pronoun anyway. Here, le points right back to el asistente. It feels redundant in English, but it is completely natural and expected in Spanish.
Would the word asistente change if the assistant were a woman?
The noun asistente itself would stay exactly the same. Because it ends in -e, it is used for both men and women. To show that the assistant is a woman, you just change the article in front of it to the feminine form: la asistente.
Why is it contacto importante and not importante contacto?
In Spanish, descriptive adjectives (like importante) almost always go after the noun they describe (contacto). This is a good reminder that Spanish word order is usually the reverse of English when it comes to describing things.
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