Direct and Indirect Objects
The subject of the sentence is the person or thing that performs the action indicated by the verb. There is another component to the sentence — the object, or the thing that receives the action of the verb. There are two kinds of objects — direct objects and indirect objects.
Direct Objects
Direct objects receive the action of the verb directly; whatever is being described by the verb is happening to the direct object. To understand how the direct object works, consider the following example:
He has a car. |
The verb used in this sentence is
Why can't I directly translate English and French transitive verbs?
The English equivalents of transitive verbs are not always used in the same manner as in French, so be careful. Never try to translate word for word; instead, take apart the meaning of the sentence and translate that.
Table 9-1 gives you some common transitive verbs that take a direct object.
Table 9-1
Verb |
English |
to help (someone) |
|
to wait (for something or someone) |
|
to look (for something or someone) |
|
to listen (to something or someone) |
|
to hear (something or someone) |
|
to watch (something or someone) |
|
to see (something or someone) |
Indirect Objects
The indirect object is usually fairly easy to determine in French. It generally appears with a preposition (see the following section), which will be your major clue:
He gave the present to Jean. |
In French, a preposition is always placed before the indirect object. In this case, the preposition
Table 9-2 contains some verbs that take an indirect object and are indicated with the preposition
Table 9-2
Verb |
English |
to obey (someone) |
|
to speak (to someone) |
|
to please (someone) |
|
to look like, to resemble (someone) |
|
to telephone (someone) |
