Breakdown of Mi hermana le dijo al psicólogo que estaba deprimida.
la hermana
the sister
estar
to be (location/state)
mi
my
a
to
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
le
to him / to her / to you (formal) / him (direct object, male person)
decir
to say / to tell
el psicólogo
the psychologist
deprimido
depressed
Questions & Answers about Mi hermana le dijo al psicólogo que estaba deprimida.
Why is the verb estaba in the imperfect tense here?
This is an example of reported speech. Originally, the sister would have said 'I am depressed' (estoy deprimida, present tense). Because the reporting verb dijo (she said) is in the past, the present tense estoy shifts a step back into the past, becoming the imperfect estaba.
Why do we need le if we already say al psicólogo?
In Spanish, it is very common and usually required to use the indirect object pronoun (le) even when you explicitly name the person receiving the action (al psicólogo). It acts as a helpful marker pointing to who is being told.
Could I use era instead of estaba for 'she was depressed'?
Why does the sentence use al instead of a el?
Whenever the preposition a (to) is directly followed by the masculine singular article el (the), they must combine into the contraction al. You cannot leave them as two separate words in Spanish.
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