Correlating masculine / feminine subjects

Es sólo una expresión, Amy, no tienes que tomarlo tan literal. Shouldn't this be "tomarla" since the subject is "una expresión"?

I like your question. I think the lo is being used in a neuter sense because we do not know what the expression is. My answer is quite incomplete and I will hope that someone can provide the grammatical explanation to support my thinking.

Hola amigos, I pondered this a bit and I think Patrice is probably right. I have heard this usage from time to time and somehow wonder if it's one of those things that it's just the way it's said by native speakers. Somehow it just sounds and feels right but, bear in my mind: Soy gringo estudiante viejo y no estoy cierto. Saludos, Ricardo

yep

Voy a comer la hamburguesa antes de que tú lo comas. Thanks for the responses. Here is another example. I guess I would have to agree that there is a certain "looseness" permitted in speaking though I would find it hard to believe that you could actually write it like this (speaking French, I actually find this a bit of a shock to see this...).

Great example Steven. It would be great if our native speaker Cristian would address this. Saludos, Ricardo

I really would like our Spanish tutors to give us the answers to these issues. Do we even have them? Or are we suppose to just help each other. I don't like to say this but this is just like the blind leading the blind.

I agree with you, Aurora. We have Cristian, a native Spanish speaker who is of great help, along with Rich and a few others who are more advanced learners, but it would be very helpful if the web site assigned a native speaking tutor to address questions in the forum. There are really not that many of us participating and not that many difficult questions, so it seems it would be pretty easy for someone to keep watch and respond.

Hola a todos! First of all, thanks for the trust you have placed in me. "Una expresión in spanish" , is a femnine word. In the sentence you are telling Amy not to take "La expresión" so literal. For me , it sounds better with "tomarla" , but, it does makes sense if you keep it with "tomarlo". For example, if you change the sentence to a formal situation you would say something like: Es sólo una expresión, Amy, no la tome tan literal" In this case the verb "tomar" doesn't change its gender, since it is preced by the article "La". Even I, as a native speaker, sometimes find it difficult to try to understand why certain words are masculine vs. feminine. I do understand this can be confusing for spanish learners, since I also have stumble upon genders while trying to learn german (and they have 3 genders!!!). In german the Moon is masculine and the Sun is femenine, whilts in spanish is the total opposite "La luna y el Sol". About the hamburger example, I would only change the last "lo" for "la" since "hamburguesa" is a feminine word, in this case it is easier for us to determine it because it finished with "a" but, as always, there are exception to this rule. The word for water, "agua" is a masculine word, maybe do to the fact that it starts also with an 'a' so 'La agua' gives us some cacophony, same as english with "a" and "an" . 'A night' , 'an apple" , etc. Saludos desde Baja California a todos mis amigos estudiantes de español!

Hola Cristian, ¡Muchisimas gracias! Como siempre nos has ayudado. Es muy amable amigo. Saludos, Rich

¡De nada amigos!\n\n¡Les deseo mucho éxito!.\n\nYou can email me any questions you have , and (hopefully) I will be able to answer it, or at least give you a better idea of how to find the answer.\n\n[redacted]\n\nSaludos!