Object Pronoun

Hola, "¿En qué le puedo ayudar?" -- "How can I help you" or "In what can I help you"....I'm a little confused as it seems to me that "le/you" should be the direct object of this sentence, and would call for the pronoun "lo". Why is "le" used in this instance? Is my English not much better than my Spanish? Gracias, Randy

Hola, Randy. According to _Hugo's Latin-American Spanish in 3 Months_, lo is the direct object when you mean "it". When you mean "him" or the polite form of "you," the word to use is le.

Hola nohablo, Yes, in the interim since I posted that question I have found a number of answers through online search. One is the practice of "Leísmo" in some areas, which seems to fall in line with your explanation. I also found however, that there are a handful of verbs that ALWAYS use le instead of lo/la, and "gustar" is one of them. Randy

In some places, they do use _le_ for _you_ or _him_. In other places, and I believe this is more common, they use _lo_. I also have the book "Hugo's Latin American Spanish in Three Months." In the book "Practice Makes Perfect, Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions," _lo_ is listed for the direct object pronoun for _you_ or _him_. The same with several other books, and even my college textbook. With _gustar_, the reason _le_ would be used, is because the action in a sentece would be directed toward someone.

Remember that in this sentence, 'le' is used in place of 'te', because if you're asking someone "how can I help you", usually you are talking to someone you don't know. But let's say for example that you wanted to say "How can I help you?" to a friend. You would then say "¿En qué _te_ puedo ayudar?" The word 'le' is just used when you are speaking formally. Sometimes it helps me to think of how I would say something in 'informal' mode, when I am trying to remember whether to use 'le' or 'lo'.