Learn French: Où est l'enveloppe ? Le facteur la lui apporte. - Where is the envelope? The postman is bringing it to him.

Où est l'enveloppe ? Le facteur la lui apporte.

Where is the envelope? The postman is bringing it to him.

Breakdown of Où est l'enveloppe ? Le facteur la lui apporte.

être

to be

lui

him / to him / to her (indirect object)

où

where

apporter

to bring (to a place)

Questions & Answers about Où est l'enveloppe ? Le facteur la lui apporte.

Why is the word order la lui and not lui la?

When you have two third-person pronouns in French (like la and lui), the direct object (la / it) always comes before the indirect object (lui / to him). Therefore, it must be la lui.

Could lui in this sentence also mean 'to her'?

Yes! As an indirect object pronoun, lui means both 'to him' and 'to her'. We only know it means 'to him' here because of the English translation provided.

Why doesn't la shorten to l' since the verb apporte starts with a vowel?

The pronoun la only shortens to l' when the word immediately following it starts with a vowel. Here, the next word is lui, which starts with a consonant, so la stays whole.

How do we know to use la instead of le for the word 'it'?

In French, pronouns meaning 'it' must match the gender of the noun they replace. Because la replaces the feminine noun l'enveloppe, we use the feminine pronoun.