Word
Le frustra que tú no respondas el mensaje.
Meaning
It frustrates him that you don't answer the message.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Le frustra que tú no respondas el mensaje.
tú
you (informal singular)
no
no, not
el mensaje
the message
que
that / than
Questions & Answers about Le frustra que tú no respondas el mensaje.
Why is it respondas instead of respondes here?
Because the first part of the sentence (Le frustra) expresses an emotion. When you state a feeling about an action someone else is doing, the verb that follows que must be in the subjunctive mood. That is why the regular present tense respondes changes to the subjunctive respondas.
Why does the sentence start with Le? Who is doing the frustrating?
Verbs of emotion like frustrar work just like gustar. The person feeling the emotion is the indirect object (Le, meaning to him or to her), and the action causing the emotion is the grammatical subject. Literally, this sentence is structured as: That you don't answer the message is frustrating to him.
Could Le frustra also mean 'It frustrates her' or 'It frustrates you'?
Yes! Le is the indirect object pronoun for him, her, and formal you (usted). The translation says him here, but without more context it could be any of the three. To clarify exactly who is frustrated, you could add A él, A ella, or A usted at the very beginning of the sentence.
In English we reply 'to' a message. Why is there no a before el mensaje?