What is it?

Grammatically, there are two kinds of Object Pronouns: Direct and Indirect.

The Direct Object is the main object in the sentence, e.g. he is eating it now - i.e. he is eating the apple now. The apple is the direct object of the sentence.

The Indirect Object Pronouns are used when they refer to the receiver of the direct object, i.e. she gives him a book. The book here is the direct object, but him is the Indirect Object, the receiver.

The Rules

On the face of it, in Danish we don't distinguish between the two kind of object pronouns - opposed to German where we have ihn (direct object pronoun for 'him') and ihm (indirect object pronoun for 'him'), so we can concentrate on only learning one list.

			mig	me	pron
			dig	you	pron
			ham	him	pron
			hende	her	pron
			den	it	pron en gramcommon noun class
gram common noun class
			det	it	pron et gramneuter noun class
gram neuter noun class
			os	us	pron
			jer	you	pron
			dem	them	pron

The Examples

In Danish the Indirect Object comes before the Direct Object. Unless, of course, we add the proposition for or til.

Please consider the following sentences:

			Han giver hende den	He gives it to her
			Han giver den til hende	He gives it to her
		*	Hun læser dem en bog	She is reading them a book
			Hun læser den for dem	She is reading it to them
		*	Jeg køber dem en trampolin	I'm buying them a trampoline
			Jeg køber den til dem	I'll buy it for them
			Jeg henter dig den	I'll get it for you
			Jeg henter den til dig	I'll get it for you

* Occasionally, ommitting for or til sounds quite unclear and clumsy if you use pronouns for both objects, as in Hun læser dem den (She's reading it to them).

Instead, you would say out the actual object: Hun læser dem en bog (She's reading them a book). This makes the sentence much better! Or even better, say: Hun læser en bog til dem.