French Personal Pronouns - Indirect-object Pronouns

Indirect-object Pronouns

Indirect-object pronouns: me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur.

In French, an indirect object is an object of a verb that is introduced using a preposition (especially the preposition à). For example, in the sentence « J'ai parlé à Jean » ("I spoke to Jean"), Jean is the indirect object in the French sentence.

Indirect-object pronouns (or dative pronouns) generally only replace indirect objects with the preposition à. When an indirect object pronoun is used, it replaces the entire prepositional phrase; for example, « Je lui ai donné un livre » ("I gave him a book").

Broadly speaking, lui and leur are used to refer to people, and y (see "The pronoun y" below) is used to refer to things. However, lui and leur will sometimes also be used in referring to things.

Lui, leur, and y are replaced with se (s' before a vowel) when the indirect object refers to the same entity as the subject; see the section on the reflexive pronouns below.

As mentioned above, the indirect object pronouns are not always used to replace indirect objects:

• They are not used when the preposition is de rather than à; but see the section on the pronoun en, below.
• Some verbs are incompatible with indirect object pronouns, such as penser ("to think about") and all reflexive verbs. For example, one says, « Je me fie à lui » ("I put my trust in him"), not « * Je me lui fie ».