The three primary building of sentences are the subject, the object, and the verb. The subject is who or what performs the action; the verb is the action itself; and the object is that which is acted upon, whatever has something happen to it.
John eats the apple. // John mange la pomme.
S V O S V O
In the above example, “John” is the subject, “to eat/manger” is the verb, and “the apple/la pomme” is the object.
Within the category of objects, one might further distinguish between direct objects and indirect objects. An indirect object is any object that is preceded by a preposition such as “at” or “to”. A direct object is an object without preposition. (Note that prepositions are different from articles such as “a/an” and “the” and their French equivalents “un/une/des” and “le/la/les.” Articles serve a different grammatical function and are considered part of the object they precede.)
John talks to Tim. // John parle à Tim.
In this example, there is a preposition (to/à) directly before the object (Tim.) Therefore, “Tim” is an indirect object.
John hits Jim. // John frappe Jim.
Here, there is no preposition preceding the object (Jim.) Therefore, “Jim” is a direct object.
Le, La, and Les
In French, if one wishes to replace a third person direct object with one of the matching pronouns, which are “le,” “la,” and “les.” Much like French definite articles, equivalents of “the,” the one which is used depends on the number and gender of the noun that one replaces. “Le” replaces a masculine object; “la” replaces a feminine object; and “les” replaces a plural object of either gender. These pronouns may be used for either people or things.
John drives the car. // John conduit la voiture.
“La voiture,” the object, is feminine. This is easily determined because it has the feminine definite article “la.” We shall therefore replace it with the direct object pronoun “la.”
John drives it. // John la conduit.
Unlike in English, where the pronoun remains in the same position, following the verb, French object pronouns are placed in front of the verb.
John watches the games. // John regards les jeux.
John watches them. // John les regards.
In the above, “les jeux” is a direct object which is masculine and plural. It is therefore replaced with “les,” which is then placed before the verb.
John likes his dog. // John aime son chien.
John likes it. // John l'aime.
In this example, the object (son chien) is masculine and singular, so it should therefore be replaced with “le.” However, when either “le” or “la” is placed in front of a verb which starts with a vowel, as “aimer” does, it becomes “l'.” Instead of “John le aime,” we make a contraction and write: “John l'aime.”
Lui and Leur
On the other side of things, “lui” and “leur” are two pronouns which replace indirect objects. No distinction is made for gender, so masculine/feminine isn't important here, but a distinction is made for number. “Lui” is used for third person singular indirect objects, and “leur” is used for plurals. These two pronouns are near exclusively used for people rather than things.
John talks to Sandy. // John parle à Sandy.
John talks to her. // John lui parle.
Here, the indirect object (Sandy) is singular. We therefore replace “Sandy” with “lui.” Much the same as with direct object pronouns, indirect pronouns are placed before the verb.
John writes to Tim and Jim. // John ecrit à Tim et Jim.
John writes to them. // John leur ecrit.
Notably, not all verbs which take a preposition in English take a preposition in French and vice versa. An example is the verb “to search,” which in English takes the preposition “for,” but in French is simply “chercher,” without preposition.
Placement
All of the previous examples have a single verb in front of which to place the object pronoun; however, where do we place the object pronoun in the case of two or more verbs? How about in the case of auxiliary tenses?
In the case of a single conjugated verb, the pronoun is always placed before that verb. For auxiliary tenses, the verb is placed before the auxiliary, as an auxiliary and its verb are considered to be the same verb.
John talked about Charlotte. // John a parlé de Charlotte.
John talked about her. // John lui a parlé.
This particular conjugation of “parler” is in the passé composé, an auxiliary tense. Since they are considered part and parcel, the pronoun is placed in front of the auxiliary “a,” a conjugation of “avoir” in the present tense.
For a conjugated verb followed by a verb in the infinitive, the object pronoun is placed ahead of the second, non-conjugated verb.
John is going to have the dog. // John va avoir le chien.
John is going to have it. // John va l'avoir.
For longer strings of verbs, the pronoun is placed ahead of the verb which directly acts upon it, the last non-conjugated verb.
John wants to try to help Jane. // John veut essayer d'aider Jane.
John wants to try to help her. // John veut essayer de l'aider.
All of these pronouns are placed in front of the verb; however, in what order do they go when both are present? “Le,” “la,” and “les” come ahead of “lui” and “leur.”
John throws the ball to Jake. // John lance le ballon à Jake.
John throws him it. // John le lui lance.
In the above example, the direct object (le ballon) is masculine singular and becomes “le.” The indirect object (Jake) is singular and becomes “lui.” “Le” precedes “lui,” and they both go in front of the verb (lancer.)
John gave the flowers to Charlotte and Janet. // John a donné les fleurs à Charlotte et Janet.
John gave them them. // John les leur a donné.
These five pronouns are simply the basics; there is also “me,” “te,” “nous,” “vous,” “y,” and “en.” However, learning these five creates a good base for the other six later on.
Jessica Pigeau - My name is Jessica Pigeau and I am a University student in a Bachelor of Arts program with a major in Romance languages. I have had my ...
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