Specific People as Objects
In Persian, personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they) refer to specific individuals, making them inherently definite. Therefore, whenever a pronoun is the direct object of a sentence (me, you, him, her, us, them), it must be followed by the definite object marker را.
Unlike English, which changes the pronoun entirely (from "I" to "me"), Persian simply takes the regular subject pronoun and adds را.
| Subject | Object | Meaning |
|---|
| من | من را | me |
| تو | تو را | you (singular/informal) |
| او | او را | him / her |
| ما | ما را | us |
| شما | شما را | you (plural/formal) |
| آنها / ایشان | آنها را / ایشان را | them |
Using Object Pronouns
Let's see these pronouns in action:
For the third person (him, her, them), the pattern is exactly the same:
Notice in the last example how آنها را (them) and ما را (us) make it perfectly clear who is inviting and who is being invited.
ایشان is a polite, formal alternative for او (he/she) or آنها (they, when referring to people). When used as an object, it simply becomes ایشان را.