This article is associated with the course(s):
Introduction to French Grammar

Lui, leur or à lui, à elle?

1. Why Do We Sometimes Use lui — and Sometimes à lui or à elle?

You may already have learnt that when we are talking about a person after certain verbs, we can replace à + the person with an indirect object pronoun.

For example:

Or, in the masculine version:

So far, so good. But perhaps you have also come across sentences such as, ‘Je pense à elle’:

At first sight, this can seem rather strange. In all four examples, we can see à + a person:

parler à Marie
téléphoner à Paul
penser à Marie
s’intéresser à Paul

But French does not treat all of these patterns in the same way.

With verbs such as parler à and téléphoner à, we can replace the person with lui or leur, and the à disappears:

Je parle à Marie. → Je lui parle.

With other verbs and expressions, such as penser à and s’intéresser à, the à remains:

Je pense à Marie. → Je pense à elle.

So the important idea for this lesson is:

In this lesson, we’ll look at some of the most useful cases where French keeps à and uses forms such as à lui, à elle, à eux and à elles instead.

2. Two Different Patterns with à + a Person

The examples in the first section look very similar:

Je parle à Marie.
Je pense à Marie.

Both contain à + a person, but French treats the two constructions differently.

With some verbs, the whole à + person phrase can be replaced by an indirect object pronoun:

Here, à Marie or à Paul et Marie disappears completely and is replaced by lui or leur.

But with other verbs and expressions, French keeps à:

In these examples, we are not replacing the whole à + person phrase with lui or leur. Instead, we keep à and replace only the person:

à Marie → à elle
à Paul → à lui

The forms moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux and elles are often called stressed pronouns. You may also see them described as disjunctive pronouns. We’ll look at the full set in the next section.

There is a deeper grammatical reason for this distinction, connected with the way different French verbs take their complements. But you do not need to analyse that every time you speak French. At this stage, it is much more useful to learn the pattern together with the verb:

parler à quelqu’un → lui / leur parler
téléphoner à quelqu’un → lui / leur téléphoner

but:

penser à quelqu’un → penser à lui / elle / eux / elles
s’intéresser à quelqu’un → s’intéresser à lui / elle / eux / elles

3. The Stressed Pronouns After à

We have now seen that with some verbs and expressions, French keeps à when we replace the person:

Je pense à Marie.
→ Je pense à elle.

Il s’intéresse à Paul.
→ Il s’intéresse à lui.

The pronouns we use in this type of construction are called stressed pronouns. You may also see them called disjunctive pronouns.

Here is the full set:

For example:

There is an important difference here from lui and leur.

When we use the indirect object pronouns:

lui can mean to him or to her
leur can mean to them, regardless of gender.

For example:

Je parle à Paul. → Je lui parle.
I speak to him.

Je parle à Marie. → Je lui parle.
I speak to her.

But with stressed pronouns after à, the distinction between masculine and feminine becomes visible again:

This last comparison is particularly useful because lui appears in both patterns — but it is doing something different.

In:

Je lui parle.

lui stands on its own before the verb.

But in:

Je pense à lui.

the à remains, and lui comes after it.

For now, there is no need to analyse that distinction technically. The useful thing to recognise is the pattern:

lui / leur + verb

versus:

verb + à + stressed pronoun

4. Common Verb Patterns That Keep à

Now that you know what the stressed pronouns look like, the next step is to become familiar with some of the verb patterns that use them.

The most useful approach is not to see à and try to work out a rule each time. Instead, learn the verb and its pattern together.

We have already seen two important examples:

Here are some other useful patterns that behave in the same way.

tenir à quelqu’un

When tenir à quelqu’un means that someone matters to you or that you care about them, the à remains:

Elle tient à ses amis.
→ Elle tient à eux.
Her friends matter to her. / She cares about them.

Je tiens à Marie.
→ Je tiens à elle.
I care about her.

faire attention à quelqu’un

With faire attention à, we also keep à:

Fais attention à Paul.
→ Fais attention à lui.
Pay attention to him.

Nous faisons attention aux enfants.
→ Nous faisons attention à eux.
We pay attention to them.

Notice something useful in that second example. With the noun, we have:

aux enfants

because à + les = aux.

But when we replace les enfants with a stressed pronoun, we return to:

à eux

songer à quelqu’un

Songer à means to think about or think of someone, often with a slightly more reflective sense than penser à.

Elle songe à Paul.
→ Elle songe à lui.
She is thinking about him.

Je songe à mes parents.
→ Je songe à eux.
I am thinking about my parents.

We do not need to learn a huge list of these verbs at once. What matters is beginning to recognise that these belong to a different pattern from verbs such as parler à, téléphoner à and répondre à.

So compare:

parler à Marie → lui parler

but:

penser à Marie → penser à elle

and:

téléphoner à Paul → lui téléphoner

but:

faire attention à Paul → faire attention à lui

For this lesson, the main patterns to recognise are:

7. One Last Detail: Adding Emphasis or Contrast

There is one useful final detail to know.

With verbs such as parler à, the normal pattern is still:

Je parle à Marie. → Je lui parle.
I speak to her.

Remember that lui can mean either to him or to her. Usually, the context makes it perfectly clear who we are talking about.

But sometimes a speaker wants to make the distinction explicit — perhaps to emphasise one person or contrast them with somebody else.

In that situation, French can add a stressed pronoun:

Je lui parle, à elle, pas à lui.
I’m talking to her, not to him.

Here, lui is still the indirect object pronoun belonging to parler à quelqu’un.

The additional à elle tells us exactly who is being emphasised.

You can see the same idea in:

Je lui ai donné le livre, à elle.
I gave the book to her.

The stressed pronoun has not replaced the normal indirect object pronoun pattern. It has been added for emphasis or clarification. This is a recognised use of French stressed pronouns, particularly when the speaker needs to make gender or contrast explicit.

Compare the two uses

In a normal, neutral sentence:

Je lui parle.
I speak to him / her.

With deliberate contrast:

Je lui parle, à elle, pas à lui.
I’m speaking to her, not to him.

This is different from the pattern you learnt with penser à:

Je pense à elle.

Here, à elle is required by the verb pattern. There is no indirect object pronoun alongside it:

Je pense à elle. ✅
Je lui pense. ❌

So these two sentences may both contain à elle, but for different reasons:

Je pense à elle.
→ penser à normally keeps à + stressed pronoun.

Je lui parle, à elle.
→ parler à normally uses lui, with à elle added only for emphasis or clarification.

The big picture

For ordinary sentences, keep relying on the verb pattern you have learnt:

parler à quelqu’un → lui / leur parler

penser à quelqu’un → penser à lui / elle / eux / elles

If you later hear a stressed pronoun added to a sentence such as Je lui parle, à elle, you now know why it is there: the speaker is making the person explicit or creating a contrast.

Give It a Go!

If you’d like to test your knowledge of what you’ve learned so far, you can select from any quizzes or activities below.