A verb has a subject (the person or thing doing the verb), and may have an object (the thing being done to).
Languages have a variey of positions for the subject, verb and object. English is mostly a subject-verb-object, or SVO language. Consider these two sentences:
| subject | verb | object |
| John | throws | the ball |
| Marie | studies | English |
French is also (mostly) SVO. Consider these sentences:
| subject | verb | object |
| Jean | lance | la balle |
| Marie | étudie | l'anglais |
In French, however, when we replace the object noun ('the ball', or 'anglais' above) with an object pronoun (la, le, l', les), the object pronoun moves to before the verb, making the sentence structure SOV:
| subject | object (pron) | verb | meaning |
| Jean | la | lance | Jean throws it |
| Marie | l' | étudie | Marie studies it |
The subject can be replaced with a subject pronoun too:
Learn more about these related French grammar topics
Examples and resources
Q&A
Ron
Kwiziq community member
24/10/17
Bonjour Stephen,
Perhaps there is a typo in your French phrase. . . . «regarde (object)». Regarde is actually the verb and «un film» is the object. From your email, it appears that you are an English speaker, possibly from the US educational system. If you recall from high school English, a sentence is a subject and a predicate. Everything except the subject is contained in the predicate including the verb. This, by the way, is an educational standard debate currently in France in lieu of the COD and COI. So, here is another lesson concerning replacing the subject with a pronoun:
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/my-languages/french/glossary/1
In the lesson referenced in your question, it does not cite subject (name, noun) replacement by a pronoun; however, it can be. See the lesson mentioned above.
The best way to explain this is with an example:
I have the car. ---> J'ai la voiture. the object is «the car» or (la voiture) if we replace «une voiture) with a pronoun, in the case the feminine pronjoun «la» since voiture is a feminine noun. Then we have Je la ai. when then becomes Je l'ai.
Here are a couple of links that you might find useful:
https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/pro1.html
https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/pro2.html
I hope that you find this helpful.
Bonne chance.
david
Kwiziq community member
6 February 2019
1 reply
how to use qui or que?
Cécile
Kwiziq language super star
14 February 2019
14/02/19
Hi David
Here is a link to a lesson using qui:
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/revision/grammar/when-to-use-qui-to-say-who-which-or-that-relative-pronouns
And que:
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/revision/grammar/when-to-use-que-to-say-whom-which-or-that-relative-pronouns
Hope this helps!