Breakdown of El estudiante le pidió más información al bibliotecario.
el estudiante
student
al
to the
pedir
to ask for / to order
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
Questions & Answers about El estudiante le pidió más información al bibliotecario.
Why is the verb pidió used here instead of preguntó for "asked"?
Why do we need the word le before the verb if we already say al bibliotecario at the end?
This is a common pattern in Spanish called indirect object duplication. When you state who receives the action (the indirect object, al bibliotecario), you almost always include the matching pronoun (le) before the conjugated verb as well. It feels repetitive to English speakers, but it sounds completely natural and is expected in Spanish.
Why does el bibliotecario change to al bibliotecario?
The word al is a mandatory contraction of the preposition a (to) and the masculine article el (the). Because the librarian is the person the student is directing the request to, we must put a before the noun. Whenever a is followed directly by el, they merge into al.
I remember pedir has a stem change in the present tense. Does it change in the past tense too?