Moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles (advanced stress pronouns)

In this sentence "plus petit" is used as a noun and would literally translate as "the smaller (one)". The English translation which carries the same meaning as the French sentence doesn't follow the grammatical structure of the French sentence exactly.

More literally: One must always help the smaller (one) than oneself.

Hi Varsha,

 No,  in this case you can only say -

‘Il pense à elle’...

Because of what reason , Madame ?

Is it a special case ?

Hi Shrey, 

There are some verbs of emotions when  the indirect object cannot be replaced by the usual pronouns, verbs like 'songer à quelqu'un' , 'avoir recours à quelqu'un' , 'faire attention à quelqu'un', ...which come under the same rule as 'penser à quelqu'un'  if there is one...

You could at a pinch replace by the pronoun 'y' but it is normally for things rather than people.

e.g.

J'ai beaucoup songé à elle ces derniers jours = I thought about her these last few days

Nous avons du avoir recours à eux = We have had to rely on them 

Fais attention à elle! = Beware of her!

Hope this helps

Bonjour Madame Cécile !

Thank you for your support and Yes, I will surely co-operate with your French team with my queries in future and provide you sufficient time to answer my problems.

À bientôt !

Hi Daly,

'Soi' is the emphatic/stress pronoun that relates to 'on', or an indeterminate entity as in :

Chacun pour soi = Every man for himself 

En travailleur indépendant/freelance, c'est agréable par qu'on travaille pour soi = When you work freelance it's great because you work for yourself

You would only add même to emphasise :

On n'est jamais si bien servi que par soi-même = If you want something done right, do it yourself

Hope this helps!

Bonjour Michael !

I agree that it's indeed quite a tricky point!
Indeed, after looking into it thoroughly, I can't really come up with a better explanation than "colloquial usage", which I admit is not really satisfying :)
​
​I would say however that we will tend to use soi rather than soi-même after prepositions (devant, avec...) and with comparisons or after que in general.

​Soi-même will more often be used to emphasise that you do the action yourself:

I hope that's helpful!​
​Merci et bonne journée !

Aurélie and Laura have answered this very same question asked by a later poster. 

-- Chris. 

Hi Cathy,

"soi-même" is "oneself" or "yourself" in English. For example:

"Pour l’apprendre aux autres il faut le savoir soi-même." -- To teach it to others one must knkow it oneself (or: you must know it yourself).

Or, in another example:

Check the later questions. Aurélie and Laura answered this question there. 

-- Chris. 

Hi Chris, if I want to say: "I speak with him about them", is it : "Je lui parle d'eux" ?

Thanks

Hi Joan, 

Indeed,

"Je lui parle d'eux" is correct for "I speak with him about them"...