Lo

I am confused about the word "Lo" - sometimes is seems to mean "I" and sometimes "it". Can someone clarify this form me?

Yo is the pronoun that means I. Lo is a direct object pronoun for 'it'. Consider the sentence "I am eating an apple" - "estoy comiendo una manzana". We can omit "an apple" and replace it with 'it'. The sentences become "I am eating it" - "la estoy comiendo". Note that lo/la needs to match the masculine/feminine aspect of the noun that it is replacing.

Lo is one of those words that doesn't always have a clear definition — and it can function in at least three different ways, as a subject pronoun, object pronoun or definite article. When you run across the word in a sentence and don't know what it means, you often need to figure out first how it is being used. I can copy some of the examples if you like.

I just memorized them until I got the definitions of what subject pronouns, object pronouns and definite articles are. Thanks for using the forum. Rocket Spanish will eventually explain them in one of the lessons.

And if all of that isn't complicated enough, a few lessons ago I encountered lo added in front of que in some instances. When to use lo and when lo que is needed is really unclear to me. I am going to have to go back over that lesson again.

Hola Dan, "Lo que and lo cual translate as 'which' when the antecedent is a statement, a situation, or an idea instead of s specific noun. Lo que also translates 'what' when the antecedent is not expressed." Él se puso a gritar, lo cual(que) me sorprendió mucho.He began to shout which really surprised me. No sé lo que van a hacer ahora.I don't know what they are going to do now. This is an explanation from the book "¡Búscalo!". I figured this would be clearer than my trying to explain it. Hope this helps. Saludos, Ricardo