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Positionnement dans la phrase au mode impératif affirmatif
le nous
la vous
y
les lui
en
le leur
Verbe
m'
t'
moi
toi
N'a-t-il pas raconté l'histoire à Paul ? => Ne la lui a-t-il pas racontée ?
ANNE
APPRENDRE
INTERMÉDIAIRE, AVANCÉ
Quand on apprend le français, les règles sur les pronoms compléments peuvent paraître
difficiles à comprendre et à appliquer. Mais ces règles sont pourtant essentielles à maîtriser
si vous voulez parler et écrire en français. Nous les utilisons dans toutes nos conversations
aussi bien écrites qu’orales.
Nous allons donc voir ensemble comment utiliser les pronoms compléments d’objet direct
et indirect pour éviter des répétitions inutiles.
Si vous le souhaitez, vous pouvez directement regarder les explications en vidéo : voir la
vidéo.
Les différents pronoms personnels compléments
Il existe différents types de pronoms compléments illustrés par l’image ci-dessous :
Les pronoms personnels compléments remplacent différents types de compléments dans
une phrase : des compléments d’objet direct, des compléments d’objet indirect, des
compléments de lieu…
Il existe aussi les pronoms réfléchis. On les emploie comme compléments lorsqu’ils
désignent la même personne que le sujet. Ils s’utilisent avec les verbes pronominaux. Nous
verrons plus en détail leur utilisation dans un prochain article.
Dans cet article, nous allons nous concentrer sur les pronoms compléments d’objet direct et
indirect et analyser le type de compléments qu’ils remplacent.
Vous savez maintenant identifier les pronoms COI ainsi que ce qu’ils remplacent. Passons
maintenant à la méthode ! Nous allons analyser en détail deux exemples pour vous montrer
comment remplacer un nom (ou groupe nominal) par un pronom complément indirect.
Faites attention à l’accord des participes passés quand le verbe est conjugué à un temps
composé.
A PROPOS DE L'AUTEUR
Je m'appelle Anne et je viens d'une petite ville de Bretagne, en France.
Je suis professeur de Français Langue Étrangère depuis 10 ans.
Enseigner ma langue maternelle est une vraie passion. Je suis fière
aujourd'hui d'aider des centaines d'étudiants à perfectionner leur français!
36 Commentaires
Les pronoms compléments ont pour fonction de remplacer un nom. Ils sont toujours placés avant le
verbe sauf à l’impératif de forme affirmative.
Les pronoms personnels compléments d’objets directs (COD) remplacent des noms de choses ou de
personnes définies. Ils répondent à la question : « quoi ? » ou « qui ? ».
Ex : Vous avez rencontré Marie. Vous avez rencontré qui ? Marie. Vous l’avez rencontrée.
2ème personne te vous
Les pronoms personnels complément d’objet indirect (COI) remplacent des noms de personnes
précédés de la préposition « à ». Ils répondent à la question : « à qui ?».
Singulier
1ère personne Pluriel
me
nous
2ème personne te vous
On utilise principalement les pronoms indirects avec les verbes de communication qui se construisent
avec la préposition « à » : Parler, téléphoner, demander, dire, écrire, répondre…
Understanding French Pronouns
Today, I am going to talk about a vast and difficult subject: French pronouns. I can’t cover
it all in a blog post, but I will point out some difficulties that often confuse the students of
French and I hope this will clarify things a bit.
For example, if I am talking about my friend Tina, I can say: “Tina picks flowers. Tina
likes flowers. Tina is happy”.
Or, I could replace “Tina” and use a pronoun, in this case “she”.
Why “she” and not “her”? or “hers”? Because in this sentence, “Tina” is the grammatical
subject. So I need to pick a subject pronoun.
First, you have to figure out the grammatical value of the word you want to replace.
Qui + verb is the grammatical question you ask to figure out the subject.
Since “Tina” answers “qui + verb”, Tina is the subject.
Je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles (s is silent).
Tina is feminine, singular, a third person (she), so I’ll pick “elle” to replace “Tina”. (If you
don’t understand “feminine & singular”, read my article about French number and
gender before you continue reading this article)
This is often the biggest problem English speakers face when dealing with pronouns. They
don’t know how to figure out the grammatical value of the noun they want to replace.
In English, there are not so many pronouns. The choice between “she” or “her” or “hers”
comes naturally to your ear.
It takes about 10 years for a French kid to master all the different French pronouns: they
mostly learn by repetition, although they do also spend years learning the theory in French
class.
Ideally, kids learn pronouns by repetition and correction: their parents and teachers keep
correcting their mistakes, and then the kid develops an understanding of what pronoun s/he
should use in different sentence structures.
So, you may be able to learn the French pronouns by mimicking French sentences featuring
pronouns (with audio of course), like French kids do. But unless you have someone
constantly correcting you, this way not be the best nor the fastest way.
Actually understanding the logic behind why we use this or that pronoun will be a
tremendous help to understanding French pronouns. This “logic” is called grammar.
Today, let’s look at French stress pronouns and French object pronouns, which are the ones
that confuse learners of French the most.
This lesson will give you essential pointers, and offer simplified explanations: I cannot
explain all the subtleties of French pronouns in one article when entire books are written on
this subject! I will however focus on what usually confuses English speakers.
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Stress pronouns (also called “disjunctive” and “emphatic” pronouns) are used:
1. after “c’est”,
2. alone (as in pointing to someone to say “him”, or raising your hand to get picked),
3. and before and after prepositions/conjunctions.
c’est moi.
Moi, moi !! (shouting it out to get picked).
Avec toi… Lui et moi.
The list of French stress pronouns is moi, toi, LUI, ELLE, soi, nous, vous, EUX, ELLES.
Note that in stress pronouns, LUI is used only for MASCULINE singular, and also
carefully learn the plural masculine EUX – pronounced like the “e” in “je”.
The stress pronoun for “on” is “soi” but it’s not very used in French.
On le fait soi-même.
One does it oneself (we do it ourselves, everybody does it for everybody…) The French
“on” is explained here.
As I explained in the first paragraph, the key to figuring out what pronoun you should use
to replace a French word is understanding the grammatical value of that word.
The problem with direct and indirect objects is that English may take a COI where French
takes a COD… So if you ask your grammatical question in English, you may get the wrong
answer: for example ‘to call someone’ takes a direct object in English. “Téléphoner à
quelqu’un” takes an indirect object in French.
Now let’s take an example, it will make much more sense this way.
Start by finding out the direct object by asking your direct object question in French.
Subject + verb + qui/quoi ?
Tina donne quoi ?
Answer: Tina donne les fleurs
Les fleurs = COD
If you understand this process, then you understand direct and indirect objects in French.
Once you’ve found the word you want to replace, you choose the right pronoun in the list
of pronouns.
Me, te, le/la, nous, vous, les – note me, te, le/la become m’, t’, l’ + vowel or h
So, for a COI, lui means him AND her (unlike stress pronouns where lui means
him, elle means her).
Important:
Note that for both object groups, me, te, nous, vous are the same.
So the pronoun only change between le, la, l’, les, lui, leur.
Object pronouns usually go right before the CONJUGATED verb (after the”ne” in the
negative), and there are lots of glidings in spoken French (use my French audiobooksto get
accustomed to understanding spoken French).
Except for the imperative mood, the order will be the following :
Subject
+ (ne)
+ me / te / se / nous / vous
+ le / la / l’ / les
+ lui / leur
+ verb
+ (pas).
Obviously, this is just a shortcut: you cannot learn your pronoun order with a list like that.
You need to practice a lot so this order becomes second nature to you. Glidings are super
strong over these pronouns, in particular the ones ending in “e”, so stay focused on the
context since lots of time, one pronoun will disappear in spoken French when people don’t
enunciate…
Direct and Indirect object pronouns are thoroughly explained + exercises + featured in an
intermediate level story in my French audiobook À Moi Paris Level 3.
1. NOUS and VOUS are the form for almost all pronouns: subject, stress, object, reflexive,
etc…
2. LUI can mean “for/with/by… – HIM – masculine singular ONLY when it is a stress pronoun,
AND “him or her” when it is an indirect object pronoun.
3. LEUR means them, but it’s also the form of the possessive adjective “their”; voici leur
maison.
4. LE, LA, L’, LES, are direct object pronouns AND definite articles meaning “the”.
ONLY A FEW FRENCH VERBS take indirect object pronouns: acheter à, emprunter à,
prêter à, offrir à, rendre à, donner à, vendre à, parler à, demander à, dire à, téléphoner à,
écrire à, sourire à, répondre à, souhaiter à, envoyer à, laisser à, présenter à, servir à, raconter
à…the list goes on but these are the most common ones.
You may find this list of French verbs followed by the preposition à useful.
So the best thing to do is to drill with these French verbs and “lui & leur”… je lui
téléphone, nous leur vendons….
Note that the COD may be a thing or a person, an animal… So animate or inanimate.
Of course, these are shortcuts, I’m sure you’ll find examples where this doesn’t’ work.
Direct, indirect, object, and stress pronouns have kind of the same value. They have to do
with “who” the subject does an action to.
Subject + verb + à someone = most of the time indirect object (some exceptions when
some verbs with an “à” construction require a stress pronouns)
Je donne (la fleur) à Pierre = Je lui donne (la fleur).
If you enjoyed this article, you will also enjoy the audio article I recorded about the modern
glidings of the French object pronouns.
La leçon
COD ou COI ? Je ne comprends pas...
N'abandonnez pas!! Ce n'est pas si compliqué...
En général un COD (Complément d'Objet Direct) fait partie du groupe verbal.
Le Complement d’Objet Direct dépend d’un verbe transitif direct. Il lui est
directement relié, sans préposition. Il répond à la question "qui?"
Exemple: Ana regarde Jessica
Ana regarde qui ? ... "Jessica"
Donc si on utilise un Pronom COD :Ana la regarde
Lorsqu’il est possible de tourner la phrase à la voix passive, c’est le COD qui
devient le sujet de la phrase passive.
Exemple: Qui est regardée par Ana? ... Jessica est regardée (par Ana)
Mais attention!! Ici on utilise le Pronom Personnel Sujet Elle (qui remplace le
Pronom COD dans le cas d'une phrase à la voix passive)
Elle est regardée par Ana
Le Complement d’Objet Indirect (COI) dépend d’un verbe transitif indirect. Il
est relié au verbe par la préposition avec laquelle se construit ce verbe. Il répond à
la question "à qui?", "à quoi?", "de qui?", etc.
Exemples : Ana parle de Jessica
Ana parle de qui ? ... de Jessica
Ana parle de sport
Ana parle de quoi ? ... de sport
Ana pense à manger
Ana pense à quoi ? ... à manger
Avant de faire les exercices, cliquez sur les liens pour trouver la liste des
pronoms COD et COI et d'autres exemples.
" les pronoms complément d'objet " et " les pronoms compléments en français "
.
À voir également
Les pronoms
Les reprises nominales et pronominales
Comment trouver la fonction d’un pronom relatif ?
Évaluation sur les pronoms personnels
Lesson 8: COD and COI
The following learning supplement makes use of some of the concepts taught in Lesson 8
of Brainscape’s French Sentence Builder, including:
-Food vocabulary
-Basic use of direct objects
-Quantitative words
-Units of measure
-The structure “devoir + infinitif”
The following text presents a famous and classic recipe of the gâteau au chocolat (chocolate
cake). It is a very common dessert in France, and it’s very easy to make!
Here’s a little exercise. While all the directions in this recipe are identical to the real recipe, one
intruding element has been added. Can you tell which one of the following steps you should
not follow?
Note that in French, while recipes can also be presented in the imperative tense, they are often
presented with verbs in their infinitive form.
Pour 8 personnes.
Ingrédients:
200 grammes de chocolat noir
150 grammes de beurre
150 grammes de sucre en poudre
30 grammes d’ail + Add quantity
50 grammes de farine
3 oeufs
Just like in English, we can substitute the objects of a sentence with pronouns, so that we say
“Matthew gives it to Jacob,” although the word “cake” must have been mentioned before to be
understood. In French, of course, the direct object pronouns must agree in gender and
number:
1 me nous
2 te vous
3 le, la les
The main difference between French and English is that when you substitute a COD pronoun
for a direct object noun, the order in French changes to Subject-Object-Verb. Observe:
So because the direct object pronouns come before the verb, it is important to keep in mind the
rules of contraction and liaison:
I love you.
Je t’aime.
He knows us.
Il nous connaît.
You all see them.
Vous les voyez.
Remember that all nouns in French have a gender. As a result, the word “it” can be
represented by le/la whenever “it” is a COD or byil/elle whenever “it” is the subject of a
sentence. Observe how this works in normal speech.
*Elle = ta voiture. Even though the car is an inanimate object, in French you refer to “it” with
the pronoun “elle.”
***When negating a sentence with a COD pronoun, the ne still comes directly after the subject
and the pas right after the verb. Let’s see the same examples as above, but negated:
If we have already mentioned “your brother” in conversation, we might opt to simply say, “I saw
him,” in which case we would replace ton frère with le and move the le to the spot between the
subject (je) and the main, conjugated verb (ai). Once again, be mindful of rules of contraction:
Je l’ai vu.
Whenever a COD pronoun is used with the passé composé, however, the past participle (in
this case, vu) must agree with the COD pronoun in gender and number. In the example above,
we don’t have to change anything because vu is already masculine and singular, just like frère.
But let’s see what happens when we change it up:
J’ai vu ta soeur → Je l’ai vue
As usual, we must add an -E for the feminine ending and an -S for the plural. Notice, however,
that vu, vue, vus, and vues and all pronounced the same, [vy]. The difference is only
discernible in writing, or when the past participle ends in a consonant. For example:
You lost the letters? But you wrote them! Did you put them on the table?
Tu as perdu les lettres ? Mais tu les as écrites ! Est-ce que tu les as mises sur la table ?
Determining the gender of a COD can be difficult when using me, te, le, and la, because they
contract with verbs that begin with a vowel. On the other hand though, the past participle can
often let us know the gender of the person talking or being talked about:
As usual, be careful when using vous, because it can be both masculine and feminine and
both singular and plural. Always double check the endings depending on the context. For
example:
1 me nous
2 te vous
3 lui leur
COI’s follow the same rules as COD’s regarding placement. Like the COD’s, they
go between the subject and the verb:
Notice that the COD and COI pronouns are identical except for the third person. Lui is used for
both il and elle, even though it is the disjunctive pronoun only for il (see Lesson 7). Remember
that leur can also be the possessive adjective and pronoun. Watch out for easy mistakes.
The COI pronouns are usually used to avoid having to use the preposition à or pour, just like in
English we often say “I made him a cake” rather than “I made a cake for him.” It is worth
mentioning that there are several verbs that use a preposition in English, but not in French.
These verbs, such as “to speak to”, “to wait for”, “to write to”, etc., take COD or COI pronouns
in French without the use of a preposition. Let’s see some examples:
**The te in the sentence above is a COD, not a COI. This is because the structure of the
verb attendre in French is direct. Attendre quelqu’un. Since there is no preposition
between attendre and its object, in this case “toi,” we use the COD: Je t’attends.
However, the structure of the verb parler requires a COI: parler à quelqu’un. The object will be
indirect:
Finally, certain verbs have the ability to take both a direct object and an indirect object. These
are important verbs to familiarize yourself with, especially since many of them do not translate
literally into English.
So, whenever a verb uses the preposition à to complete its meaning, we can substitute it with
a COI pronoun. This is the case for two common idiomatic expressions: aller à quelqu’un (“to
suit somebody”) and être égal à quelqu’un (“to not matter to someone”).
Cette robe te va très bien ! → That dress suits you very well!
Ça m’est égal. → It is the same to me, i.e. I am indifferent, I don’t care.
In the second example, we do not have to add an -S after écrit because it’s not “us” that
Matthew wrote. He wrote “these letters” to/for us.
Below are some sentences to help you practice both COD’s and COI’s in the present and past:
DIRE: The first one is dire (to say, to tell). In both English and French, we tend to only mention
the COI and not the COD, because it is implied. If we want to hear what someone has to say,
we might just say “Tell me!” The “me” is indeed a COI, because whatever is being told is the
COD. Let’s compare some examples:
Il (me) dit toujours la vérité.
He always tells (me) the truth.
Just keep in mind that you can translate dire as either “to say” or “to tell”, and this is influenced
by the COD and COI. For example, je le dis would be best translated as “I say it” and je lui
dis would be best as “I tell him.”
DONNER: The second one is donner (to give). This conjugates like any regular -ER verb and
is the best example of how to use COD’s and COI’s. Remember that when substituting a COD
or COI pronoun for a noun, you must place the pronoun between the subject and the main
verb. For the time being, do not worry about mixing these. We will learn how to use COD and
COI pronouns simultaneously later on, so that you can say “I gave you it.” But for now, master
this:
DONNER is a great way to remember that COD pronouns affect the agreement of the past
participle in the passé composé, but COI pronouns do not. Notice the difference:
Therefore when we use donner, we are much more likely to use COI pronouns.
Je t’achète un livre.
I am buying you a book.
Je vais t’acheter un livre.
I am going to buy you a book.
Il nous parle souvent.
He speaks to us often.
Il veut nous parler demain.
He wants to speak to us tomorrow.
INDIRECT STATEMENTS
Indirect discourse is a way to join sentences together to report other people’s thoughts.
Knowing how to do this properly will greatly increase the length of your French sentences. In
English, indirect statements are two sentences which are joined by the word “that.” Observe:
It’s just as easy in French! The French equivalent of “that” is que, which always contracts when
the next word begins with any vowel. Remember that although in English it is optional to
include “that”, because we could also say “He told me Sophie wants to eat,” in French the que
is mandatory at all times! It can never be dropped out like in English. For now, we can only use
this construction with verbs that report factual information, not with verbs that reflect wishes or
speculations (so not with vouloir, demander, etc.). Those require more difficult grammar that
we will learn later on. Practice using this technique with verbs like dire, savoir, entendre,
apprendre, and lire, all of which report facts:
That wraps up Lesson 8! For practice and further examples, be sure to check out Brainscape’s
French Sentence Builder!
1. Forme négative
L’ordre des mots dans la phrase impérative négative est exactement le
même que dans la phrase assertive :
Tu ne me le dis pas → Ne me le dis pas.
Tu ne l’y emmène pas → Ne l’y emmène pas.
Vous ne vous en débarrassez pas. → Ne vous en débarrassez
pas.
Tu ne le lui rends pas. → Ne le lui rends pas
Nous ne leur en donnons pas trop. → Ne leur en donnons pas trop.
Vous n’y penserez plus. → N’y pensez plus.
Tu le fais. → Fais-le.
Tu en prends encore ? → Prends-en encore !
Est-ce que vous l’attendez ? → Attendez-le !
Tu lui pardonnes ? → Pardonne-lui !
voir p. 362 §1.
Emmène-nous-y.
Apporte-les-y.
Amène-l’y.
Donne-m’en un peu.
Voici des livres. Choisissez-vous-en deux. Occupez-vous-en.
Prenez-vous-en autant que vous voulez ! Mais garde-nous-en un.
COD COI
COD COI
COD/COI COI/COD
5. Langue parlée
Dans la langue parlée, on utilise la forme conjointe du pronom en
intercalant un s (comme dans chantes-en ou vas-y) après les pronoms
qui ne sont pas terminés par s (donc après tous les pronoms
sauf nous et vous), ce qui donne une série régulière par le rythme (le
nombre de syllabes est le même) et la structure phonique :
Souvenez-vous:
Par exemple :
Se lo compré
Tu vas téléphoner à ta mère ?
Je peux expliquer la leçon à Paul ?
Avec l’impératif
D’accord, explique–lui la Non, ne lui explique pa
leçon ! leçon !
à la forme affirmative,
lepronom COI se à la forme négative, le pro
placeaprès le verbe COI se place avant le verb
Quelques exercices:
PRONOMS COD/COI
Regardez la vidéo et répétez les phrases
yo me — me
tú te — te
él lo le lo le
ella la le la le
usted lo la le — le
vosotros os — os
Lorsque deux pronoms se suivent, on met toujours en premier le COI puis le COD :
Exemples : Me lo da (Il me le donne) dámelo (donne le moi)
Exemples
Doy un caramelo a Pedro (Je donne un bonbon à Pierre)
Le doy un caramelo (Je lui donne un bonbon)
Lo doy a Pedro (Je le donne à Pierre)
Se lo doy (Je le lui donne)