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Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns

Before we get into Direct Object Pronouns (DOPs) and Indirect Object Pronouns (IOPs) it would be good to review what Direct and Indirect Objects are. Look at this sentence:

Our parents gave three balloons to me and my brothers.

Let's take care of the easy stuff first: "Our parents" is the subject of the sentence because they are the ones doing the action. The verb is "gave" because it's the action in the sentence. Which leaves us with a direct object and an indirect object. Which is which?

Direct Objects

Direct objects answer the question "who?" or "what?" receives the action of the verb. The verb in the sentence is "gave," so who or what is receiving that action? Who or what was given? Our parents gave… what? Our parents gave "three balloons." The answer to the question is "three balloons" so "three balloons" is the direct object in the sentence.

Our parents gave three balloons to me and my brothers.

Indirect Objects

Indirect objects answer the question "to whom?" or "for whom?" the action of the verb is performed. The verb is still "gave," so to whom or for whom were the balloons given? Our parents gave three balloons… to whom? Our parents gave three balloons "to me and my brothers." The answer to the question is "me and my brothers" so "me and my brothers" is the indirect object in the sentence.

Our parents gave a bicycle to me and my brothers.

Now that we know what direct and indirect objects are; what are direct and indirect object pronouns?

Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns in English

Pronouns are words that replace nouns. We use pronouns in conversation to make our sentences more compact especially after we've established what we're talking about. Imagine this conversation:

Nice balloons! Where did you and your brothers get them?
Our parents gave three balloons to me and my brothers.

While there's nothing really wrong with that conversation, the response sounds a little stuffy and robotic. It would be far more natural if the response were:

Our parents gave them to us.

See what's happened here? The two speakers have established that they're talking about "three balloons" and "me and my brothers" so they can now feel free to substitute the pronouns "them" and "us" rather than repeating "three balloons" and "me and my brothers" again.

Just like subject pronouns, object pronouns (both direct and indirect) can be organized into a chart based on person and number. Let's take a look at the English object pronouns:

You'll notice that there is no difference between direct object pronouns (DOPs) and indirect object pronouns (IOPs) in English. That is not true, however, in Spanish.

Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns in Spanish

Now let's take a look at our sample sentence again, this time in Spanish.

Nuestros padres regalaron tres globos a mis hermanos y a mí.

It should now be fairly easy to identify the components of the sentence. "Nuestros padres" is the subject, "regalaron" is the verb, "tres globos" is the direct object and "a mis hermanos y a mí" is the indirect object.

We can replace the objects with object pronouns just as we can in English, but here's where it gets complicated. In Spanish DOPs and IOPs are not the same. Let's look:

The charts look similar at first glance, but there are some important differences on the bottom line. This is why it's important to know the difference between direct and indirect objects (and why we've spent so much time discussing them.) The object pronoun you use often depends on what kind of object it is: direct or indirect.

Direct Object Pronouns (DOPs)

To replace "tres globos" with an object pronoun, we use the DOP chart. And since "tres globos" is considered third-person, plural and because it's masculine, we choose the pronoun "los."

Nuestros padres regalaron tres globos a mis hermanos y a mí.
Our parents gave three balloons to my brothers and me.

becomes

Nuestros padres los regalaron a mis hermanos y a mí.
Our parents gave them to my brothers and me.

What just happened? Why is the "los" now in front of "regalaron"? Because, just like with reflexive pronouns, that's where we put object pronouns in Spanish. It looks completely backwards to an English speaker, but that's just the way it is.

Another DOP example:

Mi abuela mandó unas flores a mi madre.
My grandmother sent some flowers to my mother.

becomes

Mi abuela las mandó a mi madre.
My grandmother sent them to my mother.

As you can see, "unas flores" become "las" and gets placed in front of the verb.

Indirect Object Pronouncs (IOPs)

To replace "a mis hermanos y a mí," we simply pull the first-person, plural pronoun from the IOP chart ("nos") and place it before the verb.

Nuestros padres regalaron tres globos a mis hermanos y a mí.
Our parents gave a three balloons to my brothers and me.

becomes

Nuestros padres nos regalaron tres globos.
Our parents gave three balloons to us.

Another IOP example:

Mi abuela mandó unas flores a mi madre.
My grandmother sent some flowers to my mother.

becomes

Mi abuela le mandó unas flores.
My grandmother sent some flowers to her.

Here "a mi madre" gets replaced with the third person, singular pronoun from the IOP chart, "le."

In case you were wondering, sentences with an indirect object usually also have a direct object.

Direct and Indirect Object Prounouns Together

What if we want to use both a DOP and an IOP in the same sentence?

Both of the object pronouns are going to be placed in front of the verb, but we need to pay attention to the order; the indirect object is always going to come in front of the direct object. Therefore the sentence order will be: subject → IOP → DOP → verb.

Nuestros padres regalaron tres globos a mis hermanos y a mí.
Our parents gave three balloons to my brothers and me.

becomes

Nuestros padres nos los regalaron.
Our parents gave three balloons to us.

The indirect object, "a mis hermanos y a mí," becomes "nos." The direct object, "tres globos," becomes "los." The order is: subject, IOP, DOP, verb.

Another DOP and IOP example:

Mi abuela mandó unas flores a mi madre.
My grandmother sent some flowers to my mother.

becomes

Mi abuela se las mandó.
My grandmother sent them to her.

What!? Now what just happened? The IOP should be "le," right? Yes, but…

Substituting "Se"

In order to avoid alliteration, if we have two object pronouns in a row that begin with the letter "l," we always change the first pronoun to "se." That means that anytime "le" or "les" is combined with "lo," "la," "los," or "las," the "le" or "les" becomes "se." This rule only applies to "l" words; "me," "te," "nos," and "os" are unaffected. And since the IOP always comes first in the sentence, you will only ever substitute "se" for "le" or "les," never for "lo," "la," "los," or "las"

Note that "le" and "les" both become "se." There is no "ses."

Alternative Placements

We don't always have to place the DOPs and IOPs in front of the verbs. There are a few situations where we can use a sentence structure more like the English word order. If our sentence involves an affirmative command, we must attached our pronouns to end of the verb. If our sentence has either an infinitive or a present participle, we may choose to attach object pronouns to the verb. The IOP will still come before the DOP. Some examples:

¡Dámelo!
Give it to me!

Estoy dándotelo. / Te lo estoy dando.
I am giving it to you.

No quiero dártelo. / No te lo quiero dar.
I don't want to give it to you.

Notice that when we add pronouns to the end of commands, present participles, and infinitives, we may need to add an accent mark to the verb to preserve the original stress (because we're adding extra syllables to the verb). Also notice that when we have a compound verb like "estoy dando" or "quiero dar" we may either attach our pronouns to the second verb or put them in front of the first, but we never put them in between the two verbs. Furthermore, both of the pronouns always stick together; we don't put one in front of the verb and one behind. And remember, if we don't have an affirmative command, present participle, or infinitive, the objects must come in front of the verb.

¡No me lo des!
Don't give it to me!

Ya te lo di.
I already gave it to you.

Indirect Object and Indirect Object Pronouns

Consider the following sentence:

Ayer le dieron un regalo.

It's easy enough to translate except for the "le." Who does the "le" refer to? It could mean "to him," "to her," or even "to you." In situations like this, we'll often add an indirect object (in the form of a prepositional phrase) for clarification.

Ayer le dieron un regalo a Pablo.

It may seem redundant to use both an indirect object and an indirect object pronoun in the same sentence. We'd never do it in English, but it happens quite often in Spanish.

María le escribe a Marcos.
Les voy a regalar una computadora a mis padres.
Se la mandé a Julia.

In addition to using indirect objects together with IOPs for clarity, we can also use them together for emphasis.

A él no le gusta leer.
Me parece increible a mí.

Common Mistakes

"Nos" and "Nosotros"

After learning about object pronouns many people start to confuse "nosotros" with "nos." While it seems like "nos" could simply be a shorthand abbreviation of "nosotros," they are not the same thing. "Nosotros" means "we," and "nos" means "us." Consider this sentence.

Nos diste la bicicleta.

While it looks like it could mean, "We gave the bicycle," it actually means, "You gave the bicycle to us." The subject is omitted in this sentence, but we can see from the way the verb is conjugated that the subject is "tú." Even though it comes first in the sentence, the pronoun "nos" is not a subject pronoun; it's an object pronoun. It needs to be translated as "us."

Bad English

Another way to get off track is to confuse DOPs and IOPs because of the shortcuts we take in English. How would you write this sentence in Spanish?

Our grandma sent her flowers.

Well, "Grandma" is the subject and "sent" is the verb. To figure out the direct object we ask "who?" or "what?" Grandma sent who*? Grandma sent "her," so we look at the DOP chart, pick "la," and we end up with:

Nuetra abuela la envió flores.

Right?… Wrong. The problem in this sentence is that "her" is not a DOP. It's an IOP. While it looks like "her" answers the question "who?" it's really answering the question, "to whom?" Afterall, grandma didn't really put "her" in a box and send her somewhere. The thing being sent was "flowers." If we're a little more careful with the English, it's easier to translate:

Our grandma sent flowers to her.

becomes

Nuestra abuela le envió flores.

Now it's easier to see that "her" is actually an indirect object pronoun and therefore we should use "le" rather than "la."

What Spanish Teachers Won't Tell You

Leísmo

As if all this DOP and IOP stuff weren't hard enough already, there are some regional variances you should be aware of. In parts of Spain, the masculine DOP, "lo," will be replaced with the IOP, "le," if the direct object is a person. Occasionally this will happen with the feminine DOP ("la") too.

Loísmo and Laísmo

And if that wasn't bad enough, you guessed it, IOPs occasionally get swapped for DOPs as well. This tends to occur due to the fact that "le" can be very ambiguous since it doesn't take the gender of the person into account.