Direct and Indirect Objects

Hi, I'm a little confused here in the grammar sections on direct objects, it states that: The direct object comes BEFORE the verb Yet in the example it says: Los estoy comprando. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the verb COMPRANDO? Doesn't that express action? Why isn't it: Estoy los comprando. Same thing with the indirect object pronouns it states that: Unlike in English, the indirect object pronouns go DIRECTLY before the verb. One of the examples given is: Lupe nos está hablando Why does 'nos' come before 'esta' and not DIRECTLY before 'hablando?' Doesn't hablando express action? Why isn't it: Lupe esta nos hablando For both direct and indirect object pronouns, isn't it misleading to say that it goes DIRECTLY before the verb. If I'm mistaken as to what the verb is then please inform me.

[quo]*Quote from * Jay Hi, I'm a little confused here in the grammar sections on direct objects, it states that: The direct object comes BEFORE the verb Yet in the example it says: Los estoy comprando. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the verb COMPRANDO? Doesn't that express action? Why isn't it: Estoy los comprando. [/quo] The verb is *estoy comprando*. In fact, strictly speaking, the real verb is *estoy*; comprando is a present participle. Thus, the direct and indirect objects precede estoy, not comprando. There's a book I've seen mentioned elsewhere called *English Grammar for Students of Spanish* by Emily Spinelli. I've never used the book, but I looked just now at the table of contents and the index (Amazon.com has a "look inside the book" feature), and it looks as if it may be useful. It does include discussion of past and present participles. You may want to take a look. I'm not recommending it, since I've never read or used it, but you may find it helpful.

Gracias

I understand Jay's confusion. I thought exactly the same thing. I bet Jay was as confused as I was in lesson 4.7 Indirect Object Pronouns - In the following three examples why bother using the indirect object pronoun? 1. Jenny le está escribiendo una carta a su padre. Why plug in "le"? It seems perfectly clear without it. 2. Carlos quiere darles algo a ustedes. Why plug in "les" when ustedes is perfectly clear? and 3. Le voy a llamar a Juan mañana. Simply saying "Voy a llamar a Juan manana" seem to make better sense. This grammar stuff isn't easy! Thanks for the help! Pete