Me, te, nous, vous = Me, you, us, you (direct and indirect object pronouns)

Posted by Aurélie Drouard

In: Level A1, Pronouns, Pronom d'objet direct, Pronom d'objet indirect, Élision

Questions: 7

In English we have different pairs of words like I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, you/you which we use depending on which 'side' of a verb they're on: 

e.g. She admires her

I give it to him (or, I give him it)

He gives it to me (or, He gives me it)

(Notice that in the cases with 'to', the words can switch around and the 'to' vanishes, and something very similar happens in French with verbs that have à in them)

These are called subject pronouns (left) and object pronouns (right).  

French has similar pairs which we use:

See how they get used in real sentences:

Je me demande si c'est possible.
I ask myself if it's possible.

Je te parle.
I'm speaking to you.

Tu nous parles
You're speaking to us

Je vous attends
I'm waiting for you

Je t'aime.
I love you.

Grammar note: Remember verbs always have a subject (je/tu etc.) but only some have objects. Use object pronouns to replace nouns that are the object of the verb.

Tip: If the words "object pronoun" strike horror and panic into your heart, take a look at the cartoon video in the examples which explains them. They're actually pretty easy to figure out.

See also Position of direct and indirect object pronouns with negation 

Q&A

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Kyaw

Kwiziq community member

7 July 2018

2 replies

Bonjouf

Please give us an example that includes both direct and indirect object pronouns.  Such as I gave it to him.

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Cécile

Kwiziq language super star

8 July 2018

8/07/18

Bonjour Kyaw,

Je le lui ai donné = I gave it to him ( it 'being singular and male in French e.g. le stylo)

Je la lui ai donnée = I gave it to him ( it being singular and female e.g. la valise )

Hope this helps!

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Kyaw

Kwiziq community member

8 July 2018

8/07/18

Je vous remercie.

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ca

Kwiziq community member

15 January 2018

3 replies

Je l'appelle.

Hi, how do we usually know what is the L' referring here normally?

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Chris

Kwiziq community member

15 January 2018

15/01/18

Only context would tell. No way to tell from this sentence alone.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

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ca

Kwiziq community member

17 January 2018

17/01/18

Hi I refer to the sentence showed as example in the above video.

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Chris

Kwiziq community member

17 January 2018

17/01/18

Then you would need to have seen the video to be able to infer whether it refers to a man or a woman. To know the difference is purely contextual and nothing to do with French grammar.

-- Chris.

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