Breakdown of ¿Podrías pedirle al supervisor que nos ayude?
a
to
ayudar
to help
poder
to be able to / can
pedir
to ask for / to order
que
that / than
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
nos
to us
el supervisor
the supervisor
Questions & Answers about ¿Podrías pedirle al supervisor que nos ayude?
Why is the verb ayude in the subjunctive instead of the normal present tense or infinitive?
The verb pedir is a verb of influence. When you ask or tell someone else to do an action, Spanish requires you to use que followed by the subjunctive. You are requesting that the supervisor do something, which triggers the subjunctive form ayude.
The English translation says "ask the supervisor to help". Why does the Spanish sentence use que instead of the infinitive ayudar?
Why is there a le attached to the end of pedirle if we already state al supervisor?
The le is an indirect object pronoun meaning "to him" or "to her". In Spanish, it is standard and usually required to include this pronoun even when you explicitly name the person receiving the action (al supervisor) later in the exact same sentence. It acts as a mandatory grammatical pointer.
Could I say ¿Puedes pedirle...? instead of ¿Podrías pedirle...?
Yes, ¿Puedes pedirle...? means "Can you ask...?" and is perfectly correct. Using the conditional tense Podrías ("Could you") simply makes the request softer and more polite, which is a very common way to speak in professional or workplace situations.
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