more pronoun placement

Hola! I understand that object pronouns need to go right before the conjugated verb, so I'm confused by the sentences “Saben lo que hacen” and “Hago lo que debo.” Why is lo not directly in front of a verb? Is it not really a pronoun in these cases? 

I was confused by this as well. What I found was “lo que” is a “word” rather than the “lo” being an object pronoun. “Lo que” is another form of “what”. Not the question “What?” but rather “I don't know what I want for my birthday.” No sé lo que quiero para mi cumpleaños. I hope that helps! 

Thanks, that does help. It does seem that there are a lot of “lo que” phrases, and that “lo” does a lot of things besides being an object pronoun. All these little words are the trickiest…

¡Hola Scott_C y DawnE26!

Lo que is indeed a special case: it's a type of relative pronoun. As Scott_C correctly says, it is often translated as “what.” More literally, though, it's closer to “that which.” So in a sentence like Scott_C's example No sé lo que quiero para mi cumpleaños “(I) don't know what (I) want for my birthday,” a more literal translation would be “(I) don't know that which (I) want for my birthday.”

We have a whole lesson on relative pronouns in Level 2 (Lesson 12.8: "'That,' 'Which,' and 'Who'"), if you'd like to check it out. The section that specifically talks about lo que is called "LO QUE and LO CUAL 'That Which'" and is at the very end of the lesson.

If you still have any questions, just let me know! 

Saludos,

Liss

Gracias Liss!

¡De nada Scott_C! :)