double pronouns

A few lessons ago we covered direct and indirect object pronouns, how to say things like me, you, him, her, us, you and them, or to me, to you, to him and so on. This allowed us to say things like, “I see him” (Lo vedo), and “She phones him” (Gli telefona). Now we’ll kick things up a notch and learn how to handle two object pronouns in the same sentence. This will let us say things like “I’ll bring it to you” and “She’ll show them to us”.

The #1 rule in combining pronouns is as follows:

Indirect first, direct second.

The indirect object pronoun always comes first, the direct one second.

Now, the indirect object pronouns Le (to you formal), gli (to him), le (to her) and gli (to them) all become “glie” when followed by the direct object pronouns lo (him, it), la (her, it), li (them, masculine) and le (them feminine), and the two blend together to form a single new word. So you get things like glielo, gliela, glieli and gliele.

The indirect object pronouns mi, ti, ci and vi change to me, te, ce and ve respectively, only this time lo, la, li and le don’t get attached, but remain separate. So we get me lo, me la, me li, me le, te lo, te la, te li, te le and so on.

The following chart will lay this all out more clearly.

	mi	ti	ci	vi	Le	gli	le	gli
lo	me lo	te lo	ce lo	ve lo	glielo	glielo	glielo	glielo
la	me la	te la	ce la	ve la	gliela	gliela	gliela	gliela
li	me li	te li	ce li	ve li	glieli	glieli	glieli	glieli
le	me le	te le	ce le	ve le	gliele	gliele	gliele	gliele

For some unknown reason, these are the only direct and indirect object pronoun combinations in Italian. The direct object pronouns mi, ti, ci and vi get left out. Poverini!

As with all pronouns in Italian, the double pronouns go immediately before the verb, bumping “non” back a spot in negations. Here they are in action.

Te lo porto domani. (I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.)

Glielo facciamo stasera. (We’ll do it for you formal, him, her or them this evening – context would clarify.)

Non ve lo dico mai! (I’ll never tell it to yous guys!)

Hopefully you get the idea. If not, post a plea for aiuto on the forum! Ciao for now!

Comments

[David]

I have a more difficult one and came across your page:

"Lo te l' avevo detto di prendarla"

The "it" seems to be duplicated many times here:
1. Lo
2, l' avevo
3 prendarla

Would you care to comment.

David