spanish

In lesson 4.9.  Le voy a llamar a juan manana.   The lesson translates the sentence as saying-  I'm going to call john tommorow.    The word Le, meaning you, him' her' it does not fit the sentence. Why not just say Voy a llamar a Juan manana.  perplexed in North Carolina.

The "le" is indeed redundant (for an English speaker) and, apparently, not obligatory (at least in the example I pushed up to Rocket Spanish). That said, it is much more common to include.

This reminds me a bit of seeing punctuation at both the beginning and end of the sentence: ¿Cómo estás? Redundant but it does give you a heads-up with respect to the rest of the sentence.

You may want to check out a related thread under Grammar entitled IO DO Usage.

Larry, of everything that I have learned about Spanish so far, indirect and direct objects and their pronouns have confused me more than anything. I went over and over the lessons that you are in right now, and finally just moved on, figuring they would click for me someday. That day has not yet arrived, but at least when I see or hear them in a sentence now I understand why they are there,

A short form of the sentence is "le voy a llamar mañana" which means "I am going to call you/him/her tomorrow".  To disambiguate, you add the "a Juan" to the sentence to get "le voy a llamar a Juan mañana".  I think Spanish usually requires the indirect object pronoun even with the disambiguation.

Dan in a way I am pleased to hear it is not just me who feels that way... on the other hand I am not pleased to hear that magically day when the penny drops has not yet arrived for you!!!

Jo, I now look back in utter amusement to when I planned to be fluent in Spanish in one year. I think I am at the point now where I know what I don't know, but I am knowing a little more every day. Some day I will be fluent. I just hope I live long enough to see that day!

I am in the same place as Dan H24

Though I've just finished the bonus survival lesson in module 3, I totally understand what Dan H24 means when it comes to planning to be fluent in one year and how foolish it seems now. Maybe I'll live long enough to be fluent someday in the future.