In French, direct object pronouns are used for verbs which aren’t followed by prepositions: Me (me), te (you), nous (us), vous (you), le (him or it), la (her or it), les (them). For example, Je vois le garçon. Je le vois. (I see the boy. I see him).
The concept of indirect object pronouns in French is the same as it is in English. An indirect object pronoun replaces the indirect object in a sentence. In English, indirect objects can be understood as saying something is being done to someone. That means, most indirect objects replace a person or group of people. Read the following two example sentences:
I am writing the check to Béatrice. = “Béatrice” is the indirect object of the sentence.
Samuel gives the gifts to the girls. = “The girls” would be the indirect object of the sentence.
An indirect object is usually identified by asking the question “To whom?” with regard to the verb found in the sentence. For the first sentence example, the question you could ask is, “I am writing the check to whom?” and the response (or the indirect object) would be “Béatrice.” For the second example sentence, the question you could ask is, “Samuel is giving the gifts to whom?” and the response (or the indirect object) would be “the girls.”
In French, indirect object pronouns function the same. The major difference is where they’re placed in the sentence. Indirect object pronouns are placed before the conjugated verb in a sentence. Also, the indirect object pronoun that is used depends on the person and number of the indirect object it’s replacing.
| Indirect Object Pronoun | English Translation |
| me | to me |
| te | to you (singular) |
| lui | to him/her* |
| nous | to us |
| vous | to you (formal or plural) |
| leur | to them* |
*Notice that the third person singular and plural forms do not have different indirect object pronouns for masculine and feminine genders.
Steps to Using an Indirect Object Pronoun:
- Identify the indirect object in the original sentence by asking “To whom?” in relation to the verb.
- Identify whether that indirect object pronoun is replacing a singular or plural person/group of people (gender does not matter: lui and leur are used for both masculine and feminine)
- Choose the appropriate indirect object pronoun from the chart above.
- Rewrite the French sentence placing the indirect object pronoun before the conjugated verb. In the passé composé, this means the indirect object pronoun will go before the auxiliary verb (être or avoir). If there are two verbs (one conjugated verb and one infinitive) in the sentence, such as in le futur proche, put the indirect object pronoun between the two verbs, or in front of the infinitive.
Example:
Noémie téléphone à sa mère
- Indirect object: sa mère (Noémie calls (to) whom? Her mother…)
- sa mère = feminine, singular
- Indirect object pronoun: lui = “to her”
- Noémie lui téléphone.
Don’t forget to take out the indirect object from the sentence after you replace it with a pronoun.
If you wanted to make this sentence negative, you would place the “ne” and the “pas” around both the indirect object pronoun and the verb → Noémie ne lui téléphone pas.
*Even when the indirect object is a named person, it is replaced by an indirect object pronoun before the verb (à Solène → lui). Only with a few verbs, such as penser à and faire attention à, do you keep the à with a tonic stress pronoun (Je pense à elle). To review tonic stress pronouns in French, see the previous module in A1.1.
Example Sentences:
Parles-tu à tes amis? → Leur parles-tu?
Vous répondez à votre professeur. → Vous lui répondez.
Tu ne racontes pas d’histoire à Solène. → Tu ne lui racontes pas d’histoire.
Je vais écrire à Paul et à sa sœur. → Je vais leur écrire.
Hint:
The clue for spotting an indirect object is often the preposition, à. The Quizlet set in this module lists several verbs that are accompanied by this preposition (like, for example, téléphoner à) which are followed by an indirect object. For this lesson, all of the indirect objects will be people.
French indirect pronouns are pronouns that are used in place of indirect objects. An indirect object is the part of the sentence that tells you to whom or what something is being given. In English, these are words like ‘her,’ ‘them,’ and ‘us.’