Breakdown of ¿Podrías preguntarle al bibliotecario, por favor?
al
to the
poder
to be able to / can
por favor
please
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
preguntar
to ask
el bibliotecario
librarian
Questions & Answers about ¿Podrías preguntarle al bibliotecario, por favor?
Why use podrías instead of puedes here?
Why is le attached to the end of preguntarle?
Le is an indirect object pronoun that means "to him" or "to her" (referring to the librarian). In Spanish, you always ask a question to someone. Because preguntar is an infinitive (an unconjugated verb), you can attach the pronoun directly to the end of it.
Why is it al bibliotecario instead of just el bibliotecario?
Because you are asking the question to the librarian, you need the preposition a (to). When a comes right before the masculine word el (the), they must combine to form the contraction al.
If we already say al bibliotecario (to the librarian), why do we also need le in preguntarle?
This is a very common habit in Spanish! Even though you clearly state who is receiving the action (al bibliotecario), Spanish speakers almost always include the matching pronoun (le) anyway. It is grammatically correct and makes the sentence sound much more natural to a native speaker.
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