Lesson 9.6 - Addition of "yo" in sentence....confusing.

Hola todos!

Pregunta rápida - 

This sentence in Lesson 9.6 "Past Times" -  "Me gustaría ir yo al jardín botánico." 
Rocket is translating this as "I would like to go to the botanic gardens."

Having "yo" in the middle makes no sense to me.  Can anyone tell me why it is there, or is it truly an error? 

(I figured I'd ask first before sending it to Rocket themselves. :) )

Gracias!
Kel

Hola - The "yo" is added for emphasis, in this case in contrast with someone else. In English, it would be something along the lines of...
- Me, I would like to go to the botanic gardens.
- As for me, I would like to go to the botanic gardens.
 

I agree, Kelly, especially when first starting out it can be confusing. One of the first grammar points we learn is that "yo" is often not needed, is redundant, and is considered poor grammar when used. Then later on yo, te, and other pronouns are used without a lot of explanation as to why. But Steven, of course, is correct in that it is used for emphasis. 

Just last week I attended a 1 hour class where we discussed various subjects guided by a former Spanish professor. I noticed that one woman in particular, who I thought otherwise expressed herself pretty well, could not resist starting her sentences with "yo." I kept thinking how that must just grate on a native speaker's ears. The professor was quick to correct some errors, such as when I used gastar when I should have used pasar to say that I spent time somewhere, but let the "yos" slide. It even sounded bad to me, and I was glad I never got into that bad habit.

 

Hola, Stephen and Dan - 

¡Gracias por sus respuestas!



Stephen - this makes perfect sense, especially with the examples, thanks so much for those.

Dan - I have known forever that starting the sentence with "yo" was redundant, and even though it felt weird, I very quickly broke the instinctual habit to do so.

But up until now, I had only seen it used for emphasis in the beginning of a sentence, this was my first time seeing it in the middle, and it really threw me off, lol!

I am deep into a pronunciation course, and I supplement it with beating the hell out of Rocket's recording feature - I obsessively go over the native speaker and my pronunciation until I am decently satisfied  (as mentioned before, not what Rocket deems to be good, haha) or am completely fried on it.

But I was leery of burning a sentence into my head if it was not technically correct - the upside of using Rocket along with a hard core pronunciation course is the massive amount of material Rocket offers, but the downside is I can get one way of sentence structure too deeply entrenched in my psyche as the only way to say it due to excessive repetition.

To avoid this, I hop around a lot to the different stories before I settle in and complete a full lesson (a weird way to study, but it works for me), but I am also very careful when I come across a sentence that I don't quite "get" the structure of.

So....my long-winded way of thanking you both for the answer, it saved me a lot of time and I am sure our wonderful Rocket staff is pleased that I did not pester them first, jajajaja  :)

¡Ustedes tienen una gran semana!

Kel

Kelly: I have tended to avoid sentence constructions that I don't understand or that don't seem to be completely necessary, feeling that as I become more fluent these sorts of constructions will be more useful. As for now, the simpler the better for me.

Hola a todos,

In one of the light speed videos Gordon speaks about the redundancy for emphasis and likens it to folks in Northern England saying something like: "I work in the mill, me."  In Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish  the over use of "yo" is dubbed "yo-ismo" and it says to a native speaker it sounds as if you're drawing attention to yourself.
Saludos,
Ricardo

Yes, "yo-ismo." I was trying to think of that word when I wrote my response and just could not remember it.

When I think about this, DeNiro's line in Taxi Driver always comes to mind.

Sí. ¡Muy gracioso Dan!

"Me gustaría ir yo al jardín botánico." 
​I strongly believe that this sentence is grammatically incorrect in a horrific manner.  When using verbs in the gustar form the proper way to add emphasis is with "a mi" not with "yo."  (or a ti vs tú, etc) In other words, the sentence should read:  A mi me gustaría ir... without any reference to "yo."

​This is something that my Spanish instructor here in Peru drilled into my head.  Remember when using gustar (or gustar type verbs) what or who the subject is.  In the statement in question, the subject of the verb is not "yo" but rather the event of going to the gardens and it, that is to say the event, is pleasing to me (not I).  Therefore,  To me it would please me to go to the botanical gardens.  Yes it is awkward in English but it absolutely can't be It would please me I to go to the botanical gardens.  That's just all messed up no matter where you put the I​.

​If I'm wrong please enlighten me.  I'm eager to learn.  However, I really think that the lesson needs corrected because as nearly as I can tell it's atrocious grammar.

​Just a side note, I posted this error 3 months ago in the grammar section and it was never addressed by RS.

He-fay,
Thank you for this.  After reading the first explanation, which technically did make sense but still felt awkward and weird,  I went on a hunt and again asked my skype buddies if this was correct, and they ALL said no.

I have been meaning to come back to this post and say that I had been told by five different people, in five different Spanish speaking countries, that it was wrong, wrong wrong.

I am glad you reminded me - I had pretty much forgotten about it, I just did not include it in my preferred group of sentences, but I agree - it needs to be fixed.

 

Good points. I think the reason this has not been corrected is that this is part of the main dialogue of that lesson and Mauricio is no longer with Rocket Spanish (as best as I can surmise).

 

the-hefay, you are correct. I studied Spanish many years ago in Mexico and have recently started brushing up with beginner courses hoping to awaken my memory of the language. The emphasis on yourself as the subject of the verb 'I would like' is 'A mi'. Having yo in the middle of the sentence is simply an error.

What would be nice is if they would at least include a written correction in the lesson explaining the error or simply remove the phrase from Rocket Record.  It's wrong and should be removed if it can't be fixed.  However, it seems to me that RS is not interested in this as they haven't responded to any thread that has a question about this error.  I really like RS and they have a good product, but I'm quite surprised at the lack of response from them on this one.

Me too. I've only just begun the program and will slowly make my way through it. Although I am well past the absolute beginner stage, to get accustomed to the RS method of teaching, I am going to go through the whole thing.