'Le doy'

Le doy - I'll give you

e.g Le doy el dinero en un momento - I'll give you the money in a moment

Please could someone explain it grammatically?

Thanks.

Le doy: doy is the first person singular of dar, to give. So doy literally means I give. But I think that in Spanish if something is certain to happen very soon it does not have to be expressed in the future tense, as in daré. You can just use the present indicative.

Le is the indirect object pronoun for he, she, it, or the polite (usted) form of you. So if we were friends and I wanted to say this I could say Te doy, but if it were a formal situation, such as you being my boss or a person to whom respect was owed, I should use the usted form, le. And finally, unlike English, object pronouns go in front of, not behind the verb.

Jo, did I explain this clearly enough to you? And equally important, to the more experienced speakers, did I explain it correctly to Jo? Please correct me if not.

Hola,

Sí Dan, lo has explicado correctamente. I might add that it doesn't just have to be something that will happen soon. The present indicative is also used to express something progressive, ongoing: Esutdio español. I study Spanish or I am studying Spanish depending on the context.Spanish doesn't use the gerund or present participle, take your pick, as much as English and it's usually for something you are doing right now. My wife calls to me and I say: ¿Qué? ¿Es importante ? ¡Estoy estudiando español! When I tell the waitress I'm studying Spanish and I need to practice speaking, I use the indicative. If I were reading a grammar book and she came to the table and asked what I was doing ,then I would use estudiando. You can ask someone: ¿Qué haces? or Qué estas haciendo?

Saludos,

Ricardo

I think Dan's explanation is pretty good.  I might add that whenever you can say "to someone" or "for someone" and you are using a pronoun, that is probably an indirect object.  So, to make it clear in this sentence, I offer this translation.

Le doy el dinero en un momento = I give the money to you in a moment

Subject = implied yo = I
Verb = doy = I give
Direct object = el dinero = the money
Indirect object = le = to you 
 

Gracias a todos.

Robert that is exactly how I break it down in my head too. I think what threw me with this was that I was expecting a different form for the indirect object pronoun for 'you' and 'it'.
For instance, I understood 'La llevo' - I will take it (or breaking it down to 'It I will take')
So I thought 'to you' would be different but now I see as Dan explained, it is the same for he/she/it or formal you.
Does that make sense?

I think the next step for me alongside the RS lessons is to learn the actual grammatical categories e.g. indirect object pronoun etc. I don't even know these in English!

Hola Jo,

I recently recommended a book titled English Grammar for Students of Spanish by Emily Spinelli. I found it very helpful when I started studying Spanish as it had been 50 + years  since I studied English grammar.  Buena suerte.

Saludos,
Ricardo

Gracias Ricardo.

Hola Jo,

De nada. I hope the book will be of help to you and don't hesitate to ask any questions, as we are all here to help each other learn and to improve.

Saludos,
Ricardo