Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Understanding Object Pronoun Verb Order in French
Mistakes will always be made in French, and now you can learn from them. There are two kinds of object pronouns, direct and indirect. Beginning students of French tend to misplace them and the result can be nonsense to the French ear. The rule of thumb: Place object pronouns before the verb, with the indirect going before the direct object pronoun. When the verb is in the passà © composà © or another compound verb that includes an auxiliary verb, the pronoun precedes the entire verb; in other words, before the auxiliary verb, which is the conjugated avoir or à ªtre. The Correct Format Its never correct to say Jai lui dit. The pronoun lui goes before ai, which begins the compound verb, like this: Je lui ai dit (Im telling him). The major exception is the imperative mood (limperatif), when object pronouns follow the verb: Donne-le-lui (Give it to him/her). Here are some examples of the correct format: Tu las vu? Have you seen it?Je lui ai dit la và ©rità ©. I told him/her the truth.Il leur achà ¨te des livres.  He buys books for them. Elle ma à ©crit.  She wrote to me. *Je te lavais bien dit! I told you so! *In this example, there is both an indirect (te) and direct (le) object. Remember, the indirect object always comes first. The verb is still compound, but now the tense is plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) with the auxiliary verb in the imparfait (imperfect). So the object pronouns precede avais, which is the auxiliary verb here. Indirect Object Pronouns For indirect objects, the verbs action occurs to or for a person or other animate noun. Im talking to Pierre. Je parle à  Pierre.To whom am I talking? To Pierre. Indirect object pronouns are the words that replace the name of the indirect object. They include:    me / m   me   te / t   you   lui   him, her   nous   us   vous   you   leur   them Me and te change to m and t, respectively, in front of a vowel or mute H. Direct Object Pronouns Direct objects are the people or things in a sentence that receive the action of the verb. To find the direct object in a sentence, ask who or what. I see Pierre. Je vois Pierre.Who do I see? Pierre. Direct object pronouns are the words that replace the direct object, so that we can avoid endlessly repeating the name of the object. They include:    me / m   me   te / t   you   le / l   him, it   la / l   her, it   nous   us   vous   you   les   them Me and te change to m and t, respectively, in front of a vowel or mute H. Le and la both change to l. Remember that both indirect object pronouns and direct object pronouns precede the verb, with the indirect object pronoun going first. When deciding between direct and indirect objects, the general rule is that if the object is preceded by the preposition à  or pour, that object is an indirect object. If its not preceded by a preposition, its a direct object. If its preceded by any other preposition, it cant be replaced by an object pronoun. If you have an indirect object thats not a person or animal, it can only be replaced with the adverbial pronouns y and en. Y stands in for à  a noun and usually means there or to it. En replaces de a noun and usually means some, any, one, or of it/them.
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