The position of personal pronoun in a sentence (II)

When there are two personal pronouns in the same sentence, one acting as the direct object and the other as the indirect object, they go in the following order:

 

Indirect object	Direct object
Me	Le
Te	La
Se	Les
Nous
Vous
Se

However, this order is inverted when the direct object is represented by the 3rd person singular and plural personal pronouns:

Indirect object	Direct object
Le	Lui
La	Leur
Les

Here are some examples:

Je donne un livre à mon père	I give a present to my father
Je lui donne un livre	I give him a book
Je le donne à mon père	I give it to my father
Je le lui donne	I give it to him

If the direct and indirect objects are nouns, they are placed after the verb in any order (if you want to emphasize one of them, you should place it first). When one of the nouns is substituted by its pronoun, it is placed in front of the verb. When both objects are pronouns, they both go in front of the verb in the order highlighted below.

Here are some more examples:

Je parle à mon frère	I speak to my brother
Je lui parle	I speak to him
Mon ami nous demande la voiture	My friend ask use for the car
Mon ami nous la demande	My friend asks us for it
Mon ami demande à mon père la voiture	My friend asks my dad for the car
Mon ami lui demande la voiture	My friend asks him for the car
Mon ami la lui demande	My friend asks him for it
Le voisin salue ma mère	The neighbour greets my mother
Le voisin la salue	The neighbour greets her

With questions, the order of two pronouns together is the same. Here are a few examples:

Donnes-tu un livre à mon père ?	Are you giving my dad a book?
Le donnes-tu à mon père ?	Are you giving it to my dad?
Le lui donnes-tu ?	Are you giving it to him?

With imperatives, the objects are placed after the verb. If one of them is a pronoun it is placed first. If both are pronouns, first goes the direct object and then the indirect:

Donne un livre à mon père	Give a book to my father
Donne-lui un livre	Give him a book
Donne-le à mon père	Give it to my father
Donne-le-lui	Give it to him

VOCABULARY

le journal

Newspaper	Journal (m)	Newsreader	Radios speaker (m)
Article	Article (m)	Programme	Programme (m)
Correspondant	Correspondant (m)	Television	Télévision (f)
Writing	Rédaction (f)	News	Nouvelle (f)
Journalist	Journaliste	Transmission	Retransmission (f)
Print run	Tirage (m)	Audience	Audience (f)
To subscribe	S'abonner	Reporter	Reporter (m)
Title page	Portail (m)	Aerial	Antenne (f)
Magazine	Hebdomadaire (m)	Editorial	Éditorial (m)
Advert	Annonce (f)	Newsagents	Kiosque (m)
Editor	Rédacteur (m)	Radio	Radio (f)

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