Les Pronoms Compléments d'Objet Indirect (COI)

An indirect object pronoun replaces à + person — the recipient or beneficiary of an action. Je parle à Pierre becomes je lui parle. Tu écris à Marie becomes tu lui écris. The pronoun stands in for the entire prepositional phrase à + noun, and like direct object pronouns it goes in front of the verb, never after.

This page introduces the six indirect object pronouns (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur), explains when to use them, and covers the most important contrast with direct objects: in the third person, the indirect pronouns lui and leur do not distinguish gender. Je parle à Pierre and je parle à Marie both become je lui parle — the same pronoun for "to him" and "to her".

What is an indirect object?

An indirect object is a noun phrase that connects to the verb through the preposition à. It typically denotes the person who receives, benefits from, or is affected by the action. The verb acts on a direct object (the thing) and reaches a person through à.

*(le livre = direct object, à Pierre = indirect object)* *(une lettre = direct, à sa grand-mère = indirect)* *(à mon père = indirect)*

The test is whether the verb requires à before the person: parler à quelqu'un (to talk to someone), écrire à quelqu'un (to write to someone), donner quelque chose à quelqu'un (to give something to someone). If yes, that à + person phrase is an indirect object and gets replaced by an indirect object pronoun.

The six forms

French has six indirect object pronouns, four of which are identical to the direct object forms.

Person	IO Form	Before vowel	Meaning	Same as DO?
1sg	me	m'	to me	same form
2sg (informal)	te	t'	to you	same form
3sg (m. or f.)	lui	lui	to him / to her	different (DO: le/la)
1pl	nous	nous	to us	same form
2pl / formal	vous	vous	to you	same form
3pl (m. or f.)	leur	leur	to them	different (DO: les)

The forms me, te, nous, vous are identical to their direct object counterparts. The same pronoun me covers both il me voit (he sees me — direct) and il me parle (he talks to me — indirect). You don't have to decide which one to use; the verb's grammar tells you which role the pronoun plays.

The forms lui and leur are where French distinguishes indirect from direct in the third person:

• Je le vois (I see him — direct) vs Je lui parle (I talk to him — indirect)
• Je la vois (I see her — direct) vs Je lui parle (I talk to her — indirect)
• Je les vois (I see them — direct) vs Je leur parle (I talk to them — indirect)

Note that lui and leur are gender-blind. Where the direct object pronouns split by gender (le for masculine, la for feminine), the indirect object pronouns collapse the distinction: lui covers both "to him" and "to her", and leur covers "to them" regardless of whether the group is masculine, feminine, or mixed. We dedicate a whole page to this trap.

Basic usage

The indirect pronoun replaces à + person in the same syntactic slot. Compare the noun and pronoun versions:

The shape is subject + indirect pronoun + verb + (rest). Same position as direct object pronouns: in front of the verb, attached to it like a clitic.

Common verbs that take à + person

The challenge with indirect object pronouns isn't really the forms — it's knowing which verbs trigger them. A verb takes an indirect object only if it requires à before the person. These verbs need to be memorized; the à requirement isn't always predictable from English.

French verb	Construction	English
parler à	parler à quelqu'un	to talk to someone
dire à	dire qch à quelqu'un	to tell someone something
écrire à	écrire à quelqu'un	to write to someone
donner à	donner qch à quelqu'un	to give someone something
répondre à	répondre à quelqu'un	to answer someone
demander à	demander qch à quelqu'un	to ask someone for something
téléphoner à	téléphoner à quelqu'un	to phone someone
sourire à	sourire à quelqu'un	to smile at someone
plaire à	plaire à quelqu'un	to please someone / to appeal to
ressembler à	ressembler à quelqu'un	to resemble someone
manquer à	manquer à quelqu'un	to be missed by someone
obéir à	obéir à quelqu'un	to obey someone
nuire à	nuire à quelqu'un	to harm someone
convenir à	convenir à quelqu'un	to suit someone
pardonner à	pardonner à quelqu'un	to forgive someone

Several of these are tricky for English speakers because the English equivalent has no "to":

• téléphoner à Marie — French uses indirect (je lui téléphone); English uses direct (I'm calling her).
• répondre à Pierre — French je lui réponds; English I'm answering him.
• obéir à ses parents — French je leur obéis; English I obey them.
• ressembler à sa mère — French il lui ressemble; English he resembles her.

Going the other direction, several English "to + person" constructions don't take à in French:

• écouter Marie — French direct (je l'écoute); English uses no preposition either, but learners often want to add à.
• attendre quelqu'un — French direct (je l'attends); English I'm waiting for someone — neither French nor English here uses à, but the temptation can come from "for".
• regarder quelqu'un — French direct (je le regarde); English I'm looking at someone.

This is why the verb-by-verb mapping has to be learned. There's no clean rule from English to French.

Things vs people: lui/leur vs y

Indirect object pronouns are normally reserved for people (or animate beings). When à introduces a thing (or an inanimate concept), French uses the pronoun y instead.

*(person → disjunctive pronoun lui after the verb, not the IO clitic)* *(thing → y)*

There is a complication: penser takes a different construction depending on whether the object is a person or a thing. With people, penser à uses the disjunctive pronouns (à lui, à elle, à eux, à elles) after the verb, not the indirect clitic. This is why we get je pense à lui, not ✗ je lui pense — the verb penser doesn't take indirect clitics for people.

A few verbs behave like penser: songer à, rêver à, faire attention à, tenir à, renoncer à. These all use disjunctive à lui/à elle/à eux/à elles after the verb when the object is a person, and y when the object is a thing.

But for the bulk of à-verbs (parler, dire, écrire, donner, répondre, etc.), the rule is the simple one:

• person → indirect pronoun lui/leur before the verb
• thing → y before the verb

*(person → lui)* *(thing → y)*

Word order: same rules as direct objects

The placement rules for indirect pronouns are identical to those for direct pronouns. There's a separate page that drills the placement rules in detail; here's the summary.

Default: pronoun before the conjugated verb.

With infinitive: pronoun before the infinitive.

Affirmative imperative: pronoun after the verb, with hyphen.

Negative imperative: pronoun back before the verb.

Compound tenses: pronoun before the auxiliary, no agreement on the participle.

Notice the last point: indirect object pronouns never trigger past participle agreement. The participle stays in its base form even when the indirect pronoun is feminine or plural. Je lui ai parlé (m. or f.), je leur ai écrit (any group). This is one of the few simplifying differences between direct and indirect pronouns.

Verbs that take both a direct and an indirect object

Many verbs in this category — donner, dire, expliquer, montrer, offrir, envoyer, prêter, rendre — take both a direct object (the thing given/said/etc.) and an indirect object (the person it goes to). These are called ditransitive verbs.

*(both pronouns: le for the book, lui for Pierre)* *(me for the speaker, l' for la règle, with agreement: expliquée feminine)*

When both pronouns appear together, the order depends on the persons involved — me/te/nous/vous always precede le/la/les, but le/la/les precede lui/leur. There's a separate page on multiple-clitic order.

Comparison with English

English has no formal distinction between direct and indirect object pronouns. Him, her, them serve both roles: I see him, I talk to him — same word, with or without "to". The grammatical function is signalled by the preposition (or its absence), not by the pronoun form.

French has a richer system. In the third person, the pronoun itself encodes whether the relationship to the verb is direct or indirect: je le vois (direct, "I see him") versus je lui parle (indirect, "I talk to him"). For an English speaker, this means choosing between two pronouns based on the verb's grammar — a choice English doesn't require.

The other major contrast with English: French collapses gender in the indirect third person (lui for both him and her), while English distinguishes (to him vs to her). And French distinguishes direct from indirect in the third person while English uses the same pronoun. Net result: in the third person singular, French has three forms (le, la, lui) where English has two (him, her) — but the splits don't line up.

The other place this matters is verb learning. An English speaker has to memorize, verb by verb, whether each French verb takes a direct or indirect object — téléphoner à (indirect) but appeler (direct), répondre à (indirect) but écouter (direct). These idiomatic differences are the main learning load.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• The six indirect pronouns: me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur.
• They replace à + person — the recipient or beneficiary of the action.
• Forms 1 and 2 (me, te, nous, vous) are identical to direct object pronouns. Forms 3 (lui, leur) are different from direct (le, la, les).
• Lui covers both "to him" and "to her" (no gender distinction). Leur covers "to them" regardless of gender.
• For à + thing, use y instead. (Exception: penser à, songer à, rêver à
  • person use disjunctive à lui, not the clitic lui.)
• Placement is the same as for direct pronouns: before the verb, before the auxiliary in compound tenses, after the verb in the affirmative imperative.
• Indirect pronouns do not trigger past participle agreement.
• The hardest part is memorizing which French verbs require à before a person. Drill the high-frequency ones: parler à, dire à, écrire à, donner à, répondre à, téléphoner à, demander à, sourire à, plaire à, ressembler à, manquer à.