optional "to"

Hi people!

I have a doubt that is difficult to explain, so I will put 2 examples:

- I said it yesterday to you
- I said you yesteday the answer to your question.

Both sentences are mine, so they can contain errors, but it sounds better to me not to use "to" when the direct object is not a pronoun.Do I have right?

Thanks in advance!

Creo que con el verbo say, cuando te diriges a una persona sí necesitas el TO. Creo que depende de verbos.

He said goodbye to all his friends.

Sin embargo,

He told me to go there.

Espero que te sirva y no estar equivocada! 👁 Smile :)

In my opinion, the most strange is the word order. I'd prefer:

- Yesterday, I said it to you.

or

- I said it to you yesterday.

But I think that "to" is necessary in both cases, agreeing Silv86. Note that "say" works slightly different from "talk"

Hola samord, buenos dias de Buenos Aires.

In certain contexts, "I said it to you yesterday" (your word order changed slightly) could be correct. (For example: "Tell me you love me," she sighed. "But darling," he replies, clearly uncomfortable, "I said it to you yesterday...")

"I said you yesterday the answer to your question" is not correct in any context. You should say: I told you the answer to your question yesterday. There is a clear difference between "to tell" (preterite: told), meaning to inform, and "to say", which need not mean to comminicate to another person but might simply mean to enunciate.

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks to all!

I suppose that, besides it sounds strange for me, the to should be always present...:$

The option of leaving out the preposition to applies to certain verbs, but not with say.