El camarero se lo sirve en el vaso.

Questions & Answers about El camarero se lo sirve en el vaso.

Why does the sentence use se lo instead of le lo for "it to him"?
In Spanish, you cannot put le or les right before lo, la, los, or las. It is hard to say and sounds like a tongue twister! Instead, the indirect object pronoun (le meaning "to him") changes to se. So, le lo sirve becomes se lo sirve.
Could se lo sirve mean something else besides "serves it to him"?
Yes! Because se replaces both le (to him, her, or you formal) and les (to them or you all formal), se lo sirve could also mean "serves it to her," "serves it to them," or "serves it to you." You will usually know exactly who it refers to from the rest of the conversation.
I thought se was used for reflexive verbs, like when someone does something to themselves. Is this the same se?
It looks exactly the same, but it is acting differently here. In this sentence, it is just a stand-in for le to avoid the clunky "le lo" sound. It does not mean the waiter is serving himself!
Why is the verb spelled sirve instead of serve?
The infinitive verb is servir (to serve), but it is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, the e in the stem changes to an i for most forms, making it sirve for he, she, or it.

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