In French, if there are two objects pronouns in one sentence, they each take a specific position.
Position of double object pronouns in a sentence in French
These sentences use two pronouns:
Me/Te/Nous/Vous (Me/You/Us)
Lui/Leur (Her/Him/Them)
There are two important patterns to notice in these sentences that are different to English.
1) the two pronouns both go before the conjugated verb (or auxiliary in compound tenses):
Je vous donne cette carte. -> Je vous la donne.
I'm giving you this card. -> I'm giving it to you.
2) the order is not the same when using lui/leur as it is for me/te/nous/vous.
| Je la lui donne | vs. | Je te la donne |
| I give it to him/her | I give it to you. |
The order is ALWAYS:
me/te/nous/vous (before) le/la/les/l' (before) lui/leur
me/te/nous/vous (before) le/la/les/l' (before) lui/leur
Ambiguous cases
Look at the following sentence:
Il le lui montre.
Here both the direct object pronoun (le) and the indirect object pronoun (lui) refer to a masculine singular noun.
Now, in English, these pronouns would be "it" if the noun was an inanimate object, and "him" if it's a person. However, in French, this distinction doesn't exist, which means that the sentence "Il le lui montre." could mean either He shows it to him or He shows him to it, depending on wider context:
Now, in English, these pronouns would be "it" if the noun was an inanimate object, and "him" if it's a person. However, in French, this distinction doesn't exist, which means that the sentence "Il le lui montre." could mean either He shows it to him or He shows him to it, depending on wider context:
The same ambiguity exists with two feminine singular nouns, or two plural nouns:
To avoid that ambiguity, you can choose to use only one of the two pronouns, and keep one of the referrents.
See also how to use direct and indirect pronouns:
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