Saying him, her, it: the pronouns le and la in French

On the previous page, in our introduction to French pronouns, we saw a glimpse of the pronun le, which means him, as in I saw him. In fact:

For example:

Referring to...	Masculine	Feminine
Person	tu connais mon père? do you know my dad? oui, je le connais yes, I know him  Suggest a change / proposez une modification	tu connais ma mère? do you know my mum? oui, je la connais yes, I know her  Suggest a change / proposez une modification
Thing	tu vois le théâtre? can/do you see the theatre? oui, je le vois yes, I (can) see it  Suggest a change / proposez une modification	tu vois la cathédrale? can/do you see the cathedral? oui, je la vois yes, I (can) see it  Suggest a change / proposez une modification

Note that if the verb begins with a vowel, then le and la become l'. This is quite common in the perfect tense, because all of the present tense forms of avoir begin with a vowel:

il l'aide beaucoup
he helps him/her a lot
je l'ai acheté hier
I bought it yesterday
 Suggest a change / proposez une modification

Notice how, because both le and la reduce to the same form l' before a vowel, l' is ambiguous beween him and her. In practice, the meaning is usually clear, though.

Next: saying them in French

The next page looks at the plural equivalent of le and la, namely the pronoun les, which is used to say them.

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