Moi, toi, lui, elle = me, you, him, her (stress pronouns)

Hi Malik,

First off it would be "Et toi..." and then I must say that I've only ever heard "Comment vas-tu?" or "Tu vas comment?".

-- Chris (not a native speaker)

Hi Malik,

These stress pronouns are also used after prepositions like 'et'.

So also after words like 

sur, à, avec, pour, après, contre, and of course chez .

Après moi le déluge = When I'm gone let happen what may

Je n'ai rien contre eux = I have nothing against them

On vient avec toi = We are coming with you

C'est à toi de jouer = It's your turn to play

Je n'ai pas mon agenda sur moi = I don't have my diary on me

lui, il a de la chance! = He is so, so lucky !

I find a good way to learn them is after chez, which students seem to grasp easily:

Chez moi, chez toi, chez elle, chez lui, chez nous, chez vous, chez eux, chez elles

P.S. "Et toi, comment tu vas? " or "comment vas-tu ?" are both correct.

Hope this helps!

 

 

Bonjour Rachel,

While most stress pronouns are similar to object pronouns, there's one big difference: the indirect object pronoun lui is both masculine and feminine, while for stress pronouns, there is a separate feminine form: elle.

Hi Rachel,

There are different sets of pronouns in French .  Fortunately the 'nous' and 'vous' pronouns tend to remain the same in all of them!

These stress pronouns are the ones which come after prepositions too , so I find that a good way to learn them is after the 'chez' ( at the home of) .

Chez moi, chez toi, chez elle, chez lui, chez nous, chez vous, chez eux, chez elles.

Hope this helps!

Hi Laura, yes, I see that these are a separate set of pronouns from the Direct Object and Indirect Object sets. My question was more based on the usage; basically, when I would use these vs using the object pronouns. I think I've gotten them straight now, to some extent. :)

Thanks!

Hi Celcile,

Thanks! I see that they are a different set from the object pronouns - I was curious more so about the usage; in other words, when to use these vs when to use object pronouns. But your explanation about the prepositions in very helpful in explaining the difference.

"Lui" is the indirect object of "il"
That said, let's look at the two sentences you cite (and I am taking the liberty of abbreviating them a bit):

1) Il lui manque une oreille -- He is missing an ear. Literally this would be translated as: "It is an ear missing from him". The "from him" is the indirect object, hence "lui".

2) Il lui arrive de nous faire un cadeau. -- He happens to make us a present. Literally: It happened to him to make us a gift. Again the "to him" is the indirect object, i.e., "lui" in French.

Yes, "lui" could also be the stress pronoun but not in these cases. Stress pronouns usually are at the end of sentences or following prepositions. Neither is the case here.

I suggest you check out the lessons on indirect objects.

 

Greetings,

-- Chris.

OK, so I wasn't terribly far off from my first guess, which was that the "lui" specified that it was "his" ear that he was missing, and not just a random ear. I only thought it might be a stressed pronoun because I could see the sentence also meaning, "Concerning him, HE was... ." Hmmm...very interesting. I thought I understood indirect objects, but I didn't realize that was what this was, because in English we often omit them in cases like this. Ex: "He was missing half an ear" versus "he was missing half of one of his ears." Thanks! I think I need to become more accustomed to typical French structure!

Duke, even in the sentence "He was missing half of one of his ears" there is no indirect object in the English sentence. There is the subject (he) the verb (was missing) and the direct object (half of one of his ears). The "his" is a posessive pronoun. -- Chris.

The indirect object in English is "him". -- Chris.

Bonjour Will, En réponse à votre question, voici un phrase d'explication de la leçon en ce qui concerne pronoms de stress avancé: Notice that stress pronouns are used in the following 3 cases: - in sentences, after prepositions (de, à, avec, derrière, pour etc), - in comparisons, after que (plus/moins/aussi ....que), - with the restriction ne... que (only), after que. Comme on le voit, il y a plusieurs d'occasions d'utiliser des pronoms de stress. Bien sûr, j'espère que cela vous aiderait. Bonne chance et bonne continuation dans vos études de la langage française, la «Langue de Molière». Ron