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Le livre est sous la table, tu dois le ranger.

Le livre est sous la table, tu dois le ranger.
The book is under the table, you must put it away.
From Lesson 68:Direct object pronouns (le, la, les, l')·French

Questions & Answers about Le livre est sous la table, tu dois le ranger.

Doesn't le mean "the"? What is it doing in front of the verb ranger?
Le usually means "the", but here it is a direct object pronoun meaning "it". It replaces le livre (the book) so we don't have to repeat the word. Because le livre is a masculine noun, we use le. If we were replacing a feminine noun like la chaise (the chair), we would use la.
Why is the word order tu dois le ranger instead of "tu dois ranger le"?
In English, we put the object after the verb ("put it away"). In French, object pronouns like le, la, and les are placed directly in front of the verb they are connected to. Even though there are two verbs in this sentence, the pronoun le goes right before ranger because that is the specific action happening to the book.
Why does ranger end in "-er" here instead of being conjugated?
When you use two verbs together to express a single idea, only the first one is conjugated. Dois (must) is conjugated to match tu (you). The second verb, ranger (to put away), stays in its original dictionary form, which is called the infinitive.
I always mix up sous and sur. How can I remember which one means "under"?
This is a very common mix-up! Sous means "under", while sur means "on". A helpful trick is to remember that sur ends with an "r", just like the English word "surface" — so it goes on top! Since sous doesn't have an "r", it goes underneath.

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