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La receta es muy buena. Hoy se la envío.

La receta es muy buena. Hoy se la envío.
The recipe is very good. I send it to them today.
From Lesson 90:Double object pronouns (se lo, se la)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about La receta es muy buena. Hoy se la envío.

Why is it se la instead of les la for 'it to them'?
In Spanish, you cannot put le or les directly in front of lo, la, los, or las. Because les la sounds a bit clunky to say, the indirect object (les, meaning 'to them') changes to se.
The English translation says 'to them', but doesn't se mean 'to him' or 'to her'?
se is a very busy word in Spanish! When replacing le or les before another pronoun, se can mean 'to him', 'to her', 'to you' (formal), or 'to them'. We only know it means 'to them' here because of the surrounding context in a real conversation.
Could I change the order and say la se envío instead?
No, Spanish has a strict order for double pronouns. The indirect object (who receives it, se) must always go before the direct object (what is being given, la). A handy trick is to remember 'people before things'.
Why is the pronoun la used here instead of lo?
The pronoun has to match the gender of the thing being sent. Because we are talking about la receta (the recipe), which is feminine, we use la to say 'it'. If we were sending a masculine object like a book (el libro), it would be se lo envío.
If the action is happening 'to them' (plural), why is the verb envío singular?
The verb always matches the person doing the action, not the people receiving it. envío means 'I send' (yo envío). The people receiving the recipe are represented by the pronoun se, which does not change the verb ending.

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