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 variety 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 (la balle or anglais, in the above examples) with an object pronoun (la, le, l', les), the object pronoun moves in front of the verb, making the sentence structure SOV:
| subject | object (pron) | verb | meaning |
| Jean | la | lance | Jean throws it |
| Marie | l' | étudie | Marie studies it |
Also note that the subject can be replaced with a subject pronoun:
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