Lo vs te

[southUS]

I'm emailing a Spanish friend of mine in Spanish. I asked him to make corrections to my Spanish each time I send him an email. This was the first sentence of his most recent response:

Algunas pequeñas correcciones de lo que escribiste, están con color azul en el párrafo anterior y otras tachadas.

My question is: why did he use "lo" in the phrase "lo que escribiste"?
I would have used: "de te que escribiste", which means, "that you wrote...."

According to my knowledge, this is the breakdown of the direct object pronouns:

me (me)
te (you-familiar)
lo, la (him, her, it, you-formal)
nos (us)
os (you-all-familiar)
los, las (them, you-all-formal)


So....what he wrote was "some small corrections that it wrote......."


Where am I going wrong with this? Thanks for your help.

[Rusty]

You've misunderstood the use of 'lo' as a relative pronoun. The phrase 'lo que' can be translated as 'that which' or 'what'. So, 'lo que escribiste' means 'what you wrote'. What your friend wrote is perfectly good Spanish.

[Don José]

And this would be very bad Spanish:

Algunas pequeñas correcciones de que escribiste

Nobody speaks like that.

[southUS]

So, let me make sure I understand this. Here are some example sentences. Am I correct on this?

1. The book that she read......
El libro lo que leó.....

2. The sentence that you wrote below......
El frase lo que escribiste abajo.....

3. The car that I drove.....
El carro lo que coduje.....

[Don José]

Originally Posted by southUS

So, let me make sure I understand this. Here are some example sentences. Am I correct on this?

1. The book that she read......
El libro lo que leyó.....

2. The sentence that you wrote below......
El La frase lo que escribiste abajo.....

3. The car that I drove.....
El carro lo que conduje.....

These sentences are different from the one in the original topic.
I can't explain when we use "lo que". Some examples:

Sé lo que piensas (I know what you think).
Dime todo lo que sabes (Tell me all you know).
Todo lo que necesitas es amor (All you need is love).
¿Te acuerdas de lo que estuvisteis hablando? (Do you remember what you were talking about?)

[Rusty]

No, none of your examples are correct. None uses a relative pronoun.

El libro que leyó (ella) ...
La frase que escribiste abajo ...
El carro que conduje ...

The relative pronoun is used when you refer back to something that has already been mentioned, and relate it (tie it) to what you are currently expressing.

Lo que me dijiste ayer no me gustaba.
What/The thing that/That which you told me yesterday ...

Ana me dijo lo que dijiste ayer.
Ann told me what/the thing that/that which you said yesterday.

Here, the relative pronoun isn't used. Instead, we're using a noun that implicitly names the 'thing'.

Ana me dijo las cosas que dijiste ayer.
Ann told me the things you said yesterday.