Learn Spanish (Latin America): Te presté la tarjeta para pagar la deuda.

Te presté la tarjeta para pagar la deuda.

I lent you the card to pay the debt.

Breakdown of Te presté la tarjeta para pagar la deuda.

to you / you (direct object)

prestar

to lend

Questions & Answers about Te presté la tarjeta para pagar la deuda.

Since this lesson is about changing -gar verbs to -gué, why didn't we change pagar to pagué?

Because of the word para. In Spanish, when you say "in order to" do something, you use para followed by the unconjugated infinitive form of the verb. So it stays as pagar. You would only use pagué if you were saying "I paid" as the main action, like in the sentence Yo pagué la deuda.

Does the verb prestar (to lend) need a spelling change in the preterite yo form?

No, prestar is a completely regular -ar verb, so it simply becomes presté. The spelling changes you are learning in this lesson only happen with verbs that end in -car, -gar, and -zar (like pagar changing to pagué) to keep their original pronunciation.

Why is Te placed at the very beginning of the sentence?

Te is an indirect object pronoun meaning "to you" (I lent the card to you). Whenever you have a conjugated verb like presté, the pronoun must go immediately before it. You can only attach these pronouns to the end of infinitives or gerunds, so if you wanted to say "to pay you", you could attach it to the second verb to make pagarte.

Why do we use instead of in this sentence?