Indirect Object Pronouns: Overview | Italian Grammar

The indirect object in Italian is the person or thing to whom or for whom the action of the verb is directed. In Do il libro a Marco ("I give the book to Marco"), Marco is the indirect object — the recipient. Italian, like English, can spell that recipient out as a full prepositional phrase (a Marco, a lei, al professore), or it can replace it with a short pronoun called a clitic: gli ("to him"), le ("to her"), mi ("to me"), and so on. Once you can say Gli do il libro ("I give him the book") instead of Do il libro a Marco every time, your Italian starts sounding fluent rather than effortful.

This page introduces the full clitic series, contrasts indirect with direct objects, and — most importantly — flags the cluster of high-frequency verbs that take an indirect object in Italian where English uses a direct object. That mismatch is the single biggest source of pronoun errors for English speakers, and it persists into B2 and beyond if not addressed early.

The full set

English	Clitic	Stressed (a + person)
to me	mi	a me
to you (sg., informal)	ti	a te
to him	gli	a lui
to her	le	a lei
to you (sg., formal)	Le	a Lei
to us	ci	a noi
to you (pl.)	vi	a voi
to them (everyday)	gli	a loro
to them (formal/older)	loro (post-verbal)	a loro

A few orthographic notes before we go on. The formal Le ("to you," addressing one person politely) is conventionally capitalised in writing, especially in business correspondence, to distinguish it from the lowercase le meaning "to her." In speech the two are identical. The gli form covers both "to him" (singular masculine) and — in everyday modern Italian — "to them" (plural, any gender). The older form loro ("to them") still appears in formal writing, but it has a peculiar trait the rest of the series does not share: it can never sit before the verb. We address that fully in the gli vs loro page.

Mi dai una mano? Non ce la faccio da solo.

Can you give me a hand? I can't manage on my own.

Le ho mandato un messaggio, ma non ha ancora risposto.

I sent her a message, but she hasn't answered yet.

Gli ho prestato la macchina per il weekend.

I lent him the car for the weekend.

Vi porto due caffè e poi torno in cucina.

I'll bring you guys two coffees and then I'll head back to the kitchen.

Stressed vs clitic forms

Italian has two parallel ways to express an indirect object:

The clitic (mi, ti, gli, le, ci, vi, gli) sits immediately next to the verb and is unstressed. It's the default, everyday form: Gli scrivo domani.
The stressed form (a me, a te, a lui, a lei, a noi, a voi, a loro) is a full prepositional phrase. It's used when you want to emphasise, contrast, or be disambiguating: A me piace il rosso, a te il blu ("I like red, you like blue").

You can also use both at once for emphasis — A me mi piace exists in informal speech but is considered redundant in writing. Stick to one or the other unless you want a deliberately colloquial flavour.

A lui non importa nulla, a noi sì.

He doesn't care at all, but we do.

Non è a te che parlo, è a lei.

I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to her.

Direct vs indirect: how to tell them apart

The terminology trips many learners up because English can mark the indirect object in two different ways:

With "to" or "for": I gave the book to Marco.
As a bare noun before the direct object: I gave *Marco the book*.

In both English versions, Marco is the indirect object — the recipient. Italian only has one way to mark the recipient: the preposition a (or its clitic equivalent). So the English bare-object construction (I told *him the truth) maps to Italian *a + person or its clitic (Gli ho detto la verità).

The grammatical test is simple. Ask yourself two questions:

What is acted upon? → direct object. (I see the dog. The dog is what I see.)
Who receives the result of the action? → indirect object. (I give the dog a bone. The dog receives the bone.)

In sentences with only one object, the test is even simpler: if the verb takes the object directly (no preposition in Italian), it's direct. If it requires a, it's indirect.

Vedo Marco. → Lo vedo.

I see Marco. → I see him. (direct object — lo)

Parlo a Marco. → Gli parlo.

I talk to Marco. → I talk to him. (indirect object — gli)

Conosco Maria. → La conosco.

I know Maria. → I know her. (direct — la)

Scrivo a Maria. → Le scrivo.

I write to Maria. → I write to her. (indirect — le)

The contrast becomes second nature once you've drilled enough verbs. The trouble is that some Italian verbs require a where English has no preposition at all — which means the verb behaves directly in English but indirectly in Italian. This is the core trap.

The trap: verbs governing indirect in Italian, direct in English

The following verbs are extremely common in everyday Italian, and all of them take an indirect object — even though their English equivalents take a direct object. Memorising this list as a unit is one of the highest-leverage things an English speaker can do for their Italian.

Italian verb	Construction	English equivalent
telefonare	telefonare a qualcuno	to call someone
chiedere	chiedere a qualcuno	to ask someone
dire	dire a qualcuno	to tell someone
rispondere	rispondere a qualcuno	to answer someone
scrivere	scrivere a qualcuno	to write (to) someone
parlare	parlare a qualcuno	to speak to / address someone
credere	credere a qualcuno	to believe someone
somigliare	somigliare a qualcuno	to look like someone
obbedire	obbedire a qualcuno	to obey someone
piacere	piacere a qualcuno	to be pleasing to / liked by someone
sembrare	sembrare a qualcuno	to seem to someone
mancare	mancare a qualcuno	to be missed by someone
bastare	bastare a qualcuno	to be enough for someone
servire	servire a qualcuno	to be needed by someone
importare	importare a qualcuno	to matter to someone

The pattern is consistent. In every one of these, the person involved is the target, recipient, or experiencer — never the thing being acted upon. Italian sees this clearly and marks it with a; English flattens the same role onto the bare object slot, which makes the underlying logic invisible. Once you start asking "is this person being acted upon, or are they the recipient?" the Italian preference clicks into place.

Ho telefonato a Marco ieri sera. — Gli ho telefonato ieri sera.

I called Marco last night. — I called him last night.

Non chiedere niente a Lucia, è di pessimo umore. — Non le chiedere niente.

Don't ask Lucia anything, she's in a terrible mood. — Don't ask her anything.

Devo dire una cosa al professore. — Gli devo dire una cosa.

I have to tell the professor something. — I have to tell him something.

Hai risposto al messaggio di tua sorella? — Sì, le ho risposto un'ora fa.

Did you reply to your sister's message? — Yes, I answered her an hour ago.

Scrivo sempre ai miei nonni in Sicilia. — Gli scrivo sempre.

I always write to my grandparents in Sicily. — I always write to them.

A Marco piace molto il jazz. — Gli piace molto il jazz.

Marco really likes jazz. — He really likes jazz. (literally: 'jazz is very pleasing to him')

Mi sembra una buona idea.

It seems like a good idea to me.

Ci mancano i nostri amici di Roma.

We miss our friends from Rome. (literally: 'our friends are missing to us')

Mi basta un caffè e sono a posto.

A coffee is enough for me and I'm fine.

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The mental shift that fixes most of these errors at once: stop translating the English verb and start translating the role of the person. If the person is the recipient, the target, or the one experiencing the result of the action, Italian wants a + person or an indirect clitic — regardless of how English packages it. Telefono a Marco is built like Mando un'email a Marco in Italian's mind, even though English uses different syntax for the two.

A note on piacere-type verbs

The last five entries in the table — piacere, sembrare, mancare, bastare, servire, importare — share a deeper quirk: in their typical use, the person is grammatically the indirect object and the thing they like / miss / need is the grammatical subject. Mi piace il caffè is literally "coffee is pleasing to me" — il caffè is the subject, mi is the indirect object, the verb agrees with il caffè. Plural things liked → plural verb: Mi piacciono i film d'autore.

This inversion is the topic of a dedicated piacere page, but for the moment, just note that every piacere-type verb belongs to the indirect-object family. The "experiencer" is always in the dative — never the nominative.

Ai bambini piacciono le storie con i draghi.

Kids love stories with dragons.

A me importa solo che tu stia bene.

The only thing I care about is that you're okay.

Gli vs loro for "to them": a quick preview

For "to them" — third-person plural indirect — Italian has two competing forms:

gli (clitic, before the verb): Gli ho detto la verità ("I told them the truth"). Everyday spoken and written usage.
loro (stressed-shaped, after the verb): Ho detto loro la verità. Formal, traditional, literary.

A century ago loro was the only correct form for "to them." In modern Italian, gli has effectively taken over in all but the most formal registers — and even Treccani and the Accademia della Crusca recognise this shift. As a learner you should produce gli by default and recognise loro when reading. The full discussion lives in Gli vs Loro.

Gli ho detto di venire alle otto.

I told them to come at eight. (everyday)

Ho detto loro di venire alle otto.

I told them to come at eight. (formal/older)

Common mistakes

❌ Telefono Marco.

Incorrect — telefonare requires the preposition a.

✅ Telefono a Marco. / Gli telefono.

Correct — telefonare a qualcuno is the fixed pattern.

❌ Lo dico la verità.

Incorrect — the person told is the indirect object, not the direct one. Lo would mean 'I tell it (the truth)', not 'I tell him.'

✅ Gli dico la verità.

Correct — gli marks the recipient (him); la verità is the direct object.

❌ Lo piace il caffè.

Incorrect — piacere doesn't take a direct object pronoun. The person who likes is in the dative.

✅ Gli piace il caffè.

Correct — literally 'coffee is pleasing to him.'

❌ Risponde la professoressa.

Ambiguous and usually wrong — without a, this reads as 'the professor answers' (subject), not 'he answers the professor.'

✅ Risponde alla professoressa. / Le risponde.

Correct — rispondere a qualcuno.

❌ La somiglio molto.

Incorrect — somigliare takes an indirect object.

✅ Le somiglio molto.

Correct — 'I look a lot like her.'

Key takeaways

The clitic series is mi, ti, gli, le, ci, vi, gli (with loro as a formal post-verbal alternative for "to them"). Memorise it as a block — it's used dozens of times in any normal conversation.
The default position is before the conjugated verb — Le scrivo, Gli ho detto, Mi puoi aiutare. Placement details (with infinitives, gerunds, imperatives, and modals) are covered in the placement page.
A core cluster of verbs takes indirect in Italian where English takes direct: telefonare, chiedere, dire, rispondere, scrivere, parlare, credere, obbedire, somigliare, plus the entire piacere family. Drill these as patterns, not as isolated translations.
gli has largely replaced loro for "to them" in everyday Italian. Use gli in speech and most writing; reserve loro for the most formal contexts.
The stressed form (a me, a te, a lui...) exists for emphasis and contrast — A me piace il rosso — not as the default. Default to clitics; reach for the stressed form only when you need the rhetorical weight.

Once these forms are automatic, the next building block is combining them with direct-object clitics — me lo dai? te la presento, glielo dico — covered in the combined clitics overview.

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