Pronouns!!!

Through all my 5 years of studying Spanish, direct and indirect object pronouns have always been a mystery.  Thus, I would like to give a review of how to use indirect and direct object pronouns.  This is only one portion of the grammar we have reviewed in my class for this year, but I found that once I knew how to use it correctly, I use it all the time!  

An indirect object is the person or thing affected the action in a sentence.  It answers the question “to whom?” or “for whom?”

An indirect object pronoun comes directly before the conjugated verb.

In Spanish, indirect object pronouns are as follows: me, te, le, nos, os and les.

And example of their use is:

-Él da el libro a Maria.= Él le da el libro.

Here is the link for a website that can help to further explain indirect object pronouns:

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/iopro1.htm

A direct object receives the action of a verb and can be a person, place or thing.  It answers the questions “what?” or “whom?”

A direct object pronoun replaces the noun that is receiving the action in a sentence.

A direct object pronoun comes directly before the conjugated verb.

In Spanish, they are as follows: lo, la, los and las.

An example of their use is:

-Jen tiene la pluma. = Jen la tiene.

Here is the link for a website that can help to further explain direct object pronouns:

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/dopro1.htm

Keep in mind that sentences may have both an indirect and direct object.  In this case, the indirect object pronoun always comes before the direct object pronoun, with a conjugated verb to follow.

For example:

-Yo escribo una carta a tú. = Yo te la escribo.

When there is an indirect object pronoun that begins with “l” (such as le or les) be sure to change it to se.

For example:

-Él da el libro a Maria. = Él le lo da. = Él se lo da.

Hope this helps!