I desperately need help figuring out why I was wrong. I would ask the teacher, but he's not available until Monday, final deadlines are incredibly soon, I need to hurry and do corrections, and I can't wait too long because I have the beginnings of a cold right now and I need to get work done before I'm too sick.

Question

So, with that out of the way, the prompt to this question was "Escribe cinco oraciones originales combinado elementos de las tres columnas." I won't bother translating anything. I think only one example will get the point across well, so here it is:

Elements: yo / disgustar / ver películas tontas
My answer, which got 0/2 points: Me disgustan ver películas tontas.
Teacher correction: ".. A mi me..."

I understand how to use the "a + [prepositional pronoun] construction well enough in theory, but I'm baffled about how to discern when it needs to be used and why my answer was completely wrong when the prompt didn't tell me to construct it in that way, just to make a sentence. In other parts of the curriculum there are similar questions, such as. . .

"Escribe oraciones con los elementos dados y conjuga el verbo de manera correcta en presente. Haz los cambios que creas necesarios. Sigue el modelo.

Modelo: yo / siempre / proteger / a mi pareja
Example answer: Yo siempre protejo a mi pareja."

There is also this, which uses the "a + [prepositional pronoun]" construction, but it indicates it must be used with an "a" element.

"Forma oraciones correctas. Añade los pronombres correspondientes y haz los cambios necesarios. Sigue el modelo.

Modelo: a / yo / caer bien / los músicos
Example answer: A mí me caen bien los músicos."

Can someone please, please explain to me what I'm missing? Spanish has never been my strongest subject, but I've always tried really hard and have generally made up for it through studying. I just can't find the answer to this one on my own and I'm running out of time.

Answer 1

The "a + [prepositional pronoun]" construction is used to emphasize the subject of the sentence. In Spanish, the subject of the sentence is often not explicitly stated, so the "a + [prepositional pronoun]" construction is used to make it clear who the subject is. For example, in the sentence "Me disgustan ver películas tontas," the subject is not explicitly stated, so the teacher corrected it to "A mí me disgustan ver películas tontas" to make it clear that the subject is "yo." Similarly, in the sentence "Yo siempre protejo a mi pareja," the subject is already explicitly stated, so the "a + [prepositional pronoun]" construction is not necessary. In the sentence "A mí me caen bien los músicos," the "a + [prepositional pronoun]" construction is used to emphasize the subject of the sentence, which is "yo."

Answer 2

I'm amazed by how quickly this was answered and am wary of if this is a bot and if a follow-up question will be answered (but regardless this is helpful! so uhm, thanks!), but, is the subject not already stated with the "Me" in "Me disgustan ver películas tontas"? Genuine question! I sincerely do not know. Direct and indirect objects/sentence structure isn't my strong suit even in English. And if it definitely isn't, then could you please elaborate about why it isn't?

Answer 3

It is definitely a bot, forgive my momentary lapse in judgement of almost believing it's a person (the answer is so detailed...) but if anyone else sees this and can elaborate that would be much appreciated!