Double object pronouns together

Tu me le donnes ?Oui, je te le donne.Il y en a beaucoup.Are you giving it to me?Yes, I'm giving it to you.There's a lot of it / There are a lot of them.

You already know direct object pronouns (me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les), indirect object pronouns (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur), y and en one at a time, and where a single one goes. Real sentences often need two of them at once — he gives it to me, she talks to me about it. Before the verb, French object pronouns follow a fixed order that never changes, whichever two are involved.

Quick shortcut: me/te/se/nous/vous → le/la/les → lui/leur → y → en — always in that order, whichever two actually appear.

The fixed order

Before the verb, two object pronouns always line up in this sequence:

Whichever two pronouns a sentence needs, the one from the earlier column always comes first. You never need to memorise every possible pair — just place each pronoun in its column and read left to right.

Le / la / les + lui / leur

The most common pairing: a direct object pronoun (column 2) with a third-person indirect object pronoun (column 3):

• Je donne le livre à Marc. → Je le lui donne. (I give it to him.)
• Elle montre la photo à ses parents. → Elle la leur montre. (She shows it to them.)
• Il a raconté l'histoire à sa fille. → Il la lui a racontée. (He told it to her.)

Le/la/les always comes first here, then lui/leur — never the reverse.

Me / te / nous / vous + le / la / les

When me, te, nous, vous act as the indirect object ("to me", "to you"...) alongside a direct object pronoun, column 1 comes before column 2:

• Tu me donnes ton numéro ? → Tu me le donnes ? (Are you giving it to me?)
• Il nous a envoyé les photos. → Il nous les a envoyées. (He sent them to us.)
• Je te prête ma voiture. → Je te la prête. (I'm lending it to you.)

Y and en together

Y and en can combine with pronouns from any earlier column, and with each other — y always comes before en:

• Il y en a beaucoup. (There's a lot of it. / There are a lot of them.) — from il y a beaucoup de pommes.
• Combien de pommes y a-t-il ? — Il y en a cinq. (How many apples are there? — There are five.)
• Tu m'en parles ? (Are you talking to me about it?) — me (column 1) + en (column 5).

Il y en a is by far the most common double-pronoun combination in everyday French — worth learning as a set phrase on its own.

The one gap: me/te/nous/vous can't combine with lui/leur

The sequence above has no slot for combining a column-1 pronoun (me, te, nous, vous) with lui or leur in the same clause, whatever role each one plays — French simply doesn't let a first- or second-person clitic and a third-person indirect-object clitic representing a different person stand together. To say "he introduces me to him" (me here is the direct object of présenter; "to him" is the person he's introduced to), French keeps me as the clitic pronoun and expresses the other person with à + a stressed pronoun instead:

• ❌ Il me lui présente. → ✅ Il me présente à lui. (He introduces me to him.)
• ❌ Je te lui recommande. → ✅ Je te recommande à lui. (I recommend you to him.)

In the affirmative imperative: direct object first, hyphenated

Just like a single pronoun, both pronouns attach after the verb with hyphens in an affirmative command — but here they follow their own order: le/la/les → moi/toi/lui/nous/vous → y → en, with me/te becoming moi/toi (and contracting to m'/t' before en). For a direct + indirect pair, that means the direct object pronoun comes before the indirect one — the reverse of the preverbal order:

• Donne-le-moi ! (Give it to me!) — not ❌ Donne-moi-le !
• Montrez-les-nous ! (Show them to us!)
• Donne-la-lui ! (Give it to him/her!)

Y and en still go last:

• Vas-y ! (Go there!)
• Donnes-en ! (Have some! / Give some!)
• Donne-m'en ! (Give me some!)

In the negative imperative: back in front, normal order

Negate the same command, and both pronouns go straight back in front of the verb, in the ordinary column-1-to-5 order, with moi/toi reverting to me/te:

• ✅ Ne me le donne pas ! — never ❌ Ne donne-moi-le pas !
• ✅ Ne la lui montre pas !
• ✅ N'y en mets pas ! (Don't put any there!)

Common mistakes

• ❌ Je lui le donne. → ✅ Je le lui donne. (le/la/les always comes before lui/leur, never after)
• ❌ Il me lui présente. → ✅ Il me présente à lui. (me/te/nous/vous and lui/leur can't combine, whatever role each one plays — use à + a stressed pronoun for the other person)
• ❌ Donne-moi-le ! → ✅ Donne-le-moi ! (in the affirmative imperative, the direct object pronoun comes first)
• ❌ Il a en beaucoup. → ✅ Il y en a beaucoup. (y comes before en, and il y a keeps its y even with en added)

Quick check

Key takeaways

• Two object pronouns before the verb always follow the same fixed order: me/te/se/nous/vous → le/la/les → lui/leur → y → en.
• Le/la/les + lui/leur is the most common combination (je le lui donne); il y en a is the most common combination overall.
• French can't combine me/te/nous/vous with lui/leur in the same clause, whatever role each one plays — the other person is expressed with à + a stressed pronoun instead.
• In the affirmative imperative, both pronouns attach after the verb with hyphens, but the order flips: the direct object pronoun comes before the indirect one (donne-le-moi, not donne-moi-le).
• A negative command puts both pronouns straight back in front of the verb, in the normal order, with moi/toi reverting to me/te.