Editing Spanish language (section)

==== Third-person object pronouns ====
Most speakers use (and the {{lang|es|[[Real Academia Española]]}} prefers) the pronouns {{lang|es|lo}} and {{lang|es|la}} for [[Object (grammar)|direct objects]] (masculine and feminine respectively, regardless of [[animacy]], meaning "him", "her", or "it"), and {{lang|es|le}} for [[Object (grammar)|indirect objects]] (regardless of [[Grammatical gender|gender]] or [[animacy]], meaning "to him", "to her", or "to it"). The usage is sometimes called "etymological", as these direct and indirect object pronouns are a continuation, respectively, of the [[Accusative case|accusative]] and [[Dative case|dative]] pronouns of Latin, the ancestor language of Spanish.

A number of dialects (more common in Spain than in the Americas) use additional rules for the pronouns, such as animacy, or [[count noun]] vs. [[mass noun]], rather than just direct vs. indirect object. The ways of using the pronouns in such varieties are called "{{lang|es|[[leísmo]]}}", "{{lang|es|[[loísmo]]}}", or "{{lang|es|[[laísmo]]}}", according to which respective pronoun, {{lang|es|le}}, {{lang|es|lo}}, or {{lang|es|la}}, covers more than just the etymological usage ({{lang|es|le}} as a direct object, or {{lang|es|lo}} or {{lang|es|la}} as an indirect object).