Direct Object Pronouns / Pronomi Diretti - Learn Italian with Polly Lingual

Introduction

Introduzione

Direct objects are the nouns in a phrase that receive the action of the verb. In the sentence “I love you”, the direct object is “you” and “I” is the subject.

In Italian, when the objects are personal pronouns - like “you” - they change from their subject form: tu becomes ti. This is similar to English when “I” changes to “me”. You say “he loves me”, rather than “he loves I”.

There are two positions objects can have in the word order of a sentence. In the indicative tenses, it can come directly before the first verb in the phrase:

Io ti amo.
I love you.

Or, it can be attached to the last verb of the phrase, which is required for the imperative mood but optional for the indicative:

Amami.
Love me.

Like the personal subject pronouns, the direct object pronouns also have both a formal and informal as well as singular and plural “you”.

Singular	First-person	mi me
	Second-person	ti you singular informal
	Third-person	lo him it masculine si himself herself itself themselves La you singular formal la her it feminine
Plural	First-person	ci us
	Second-person	vi you all plural informal Vi you all formal
	Third-person	li them masculine le them feminine Li you all masculine formal Le you all feminine formal