les

Me preguntaron si te conocía, pero les dije que no. What's the "les" for? Here's the translation. "They asked me if I knew you, but I said no".

Maybe the les is for the "they"

Exacto.

Les is an indirect object pronoun for 'them'. Isn't the translation for the sentence this: Me preguntaron si yo te conocía, pero me dijeron que no.

I'm no expert in either direct or indirect pronouns but I think this translation might help clarify. "pero les dije que no" "but I told them no" Of course I am open to corrections if I'm wrong.

Robert maybe I'm messing this all up, but I believe this is what you wrote. "pero me dijeron que no" "but they told me no." Pero como dije, no soy un experto.

I think the provided translation, "but I said no," is one of those confusing ones that could be more clear to new learners. What the hefay said, "I told them no." is better. I thought of it like this: "but I said (to them) 'no.'"

It was early when I tackled this question so I will take another stab at it. Me preguntaron si te conocía, pero les dije que no. Les dije que no = I told them no. The sentence says the answer I gave was to them so we use an indirect pronoun for them, hence les. Now, as for the sentence I gave earlier, that is what Google Translate (GT) gave and I don't know why. If I ask GT to translate "I told them no" it gives "les dije que no". But if I ask GT to translate "They asked me if I knew you, but I said no", I get "Me preguntaron si yo te conocía, pero me dijeron que no." Why this translation? Is there something we are missing? If I rephrase it to "They asked me if I knew you, I told them no", then GT gives "Me preguntaron si yo te conocía, pero les dije que no." Beware of Google Translate.

¡Pienso que debimos tomar las translaciones de Google o Bing o otro sitios web con un muy grande grano de sal!

What is the "le"? Does it go with camisa or amigo? ¿Qué camisa le prestaste a tu amigo? Which shirt did you lend to your friend? I am hoping that asking these questions will eventually make it understandable. It also says that "which" is que rather than cual because a noun follows it.

Pienso que... Le is an indirect object pronoun. Prestaste (lend) is the verb, la camisa is what was lent, making it the direct object. The camisa was lent TO tu amiga, making amiga the indirect object. So le is referring to amiga. ...¡Pienso que!

Dan is quite correct, Aurora. You are going to see this construct frequently: - "... le [verb] a [someone]." The following phrases are correct: - "¿Qué camisa le prestaste?" - "¿Qué camisa le prestaste a tu amigo?" The following phrase is not correct (I'm 90% sure - we discussed this elsewhere in the forum): - "¿Qué camisa prestaste a tu amigo?" The added "le" would seem redundant for an English speaker.

I will return the favor, Steven, and say that your last statement is correct. This was/is one of the most difficult grammatical things for me to understand. As you say, we English speakers are accustomed to using either the indirect object itself, or the IO pronoun but not both. I finally got it into my head that the IOP is required, and the clarifying phrase that includes the IO can be used to, as Robert said in another post, "disambiguate" the sentence.