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Area of leísmo and loísmo/laísmo in central Spain. Leísmo ("using le") is a dialectal variation in the Spanish language that occurs largely in Spain.It involves using the indirect object pronouns le and les in place of the (generally standard) direct object pronouns lo, la, los, and las, especially when the direct object refers to a male person or people.
For example, in these two sentences with the same meaning: [4] ... When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun (lo, la, los, or las) ...
A las tropas las dirige César. = "Caesar directs the troops." When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun (lo, la, los, or las) is used with a dative pronoun that is understood to also be third-person non-reflexive (le or les), the dative pronoun is replaced by se.
When que is used as the object of a preposition, the definite article is added to it, and the resulting form (el que) inflects for number and gender, resulting in the forms el que, la que, los que, las que and the neuter lo que. Unlike in English, the preposition must go right before the relative pronoun "which" or "whom":
A simple example would be saying lo hablé (lit. "I spoke him"), la hablé (lit. "I spoke her"), los hablé (lit. "I spoke them [masculine]"), or las hablé (lit. "I spoke them [feminine]") where a speaker of a dialect without loísmo would say le(s) hablé ("I spoke to him/her/them"). This effectively means the loss of a declensional case marker.
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In loísmo, the direct object pronouns lo and los are used in contexts where the indirect object pronouns le and les would normally be prescribed; this usually occurs with a male indirect object. In laísmo, la and las are used instead of le and les when referring to a female indirect object.
Much of northern Spain, as well as Andalusia and Latin America, uniformly uses an etymological, case-based system in which lo, la, los, las retain their accusative value, while le, les is only used for indirect objects. That said, there is competition between that system and others in much of Spain.