TheGoat 🐟

[outer phoenix]

Please be patient

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[oblique gust]

the indirect object pronoun "lui" is used for both

as a tonic pronoun "lui" is only masculine

[clever zenith]

Why not just use le or la?

[thorny rover]

You use these pronouns when you want to replace a direct object. And there cannot be more than one direct object per verb. And the sentence already has "un e-mail" which is directly affected by the action of the verb "envoyer".
Lui replaces an indirect object, i.e. a noun preceded by a preposition.
Je dois envoyer un e-mail à Sophie.
"À Sophie" is the indirect object of "envoyer" since there is the preposition à before the noun. Therefore you use "lui" to replace it. You get this: Je dois lui envoyer un e-mail.

[half ember]

You can't use le/la for people, it'd be like calling someone an "it" in English. "I need to send it an email"

That's my understanding anyway

[oblique gust]

You absolutely use le and la (and les!) with people, but only if the person is the grammatical direct object of the sentence.

[thorny rover]

La maman a emmené ses enfants à l'école => la maman les a emmenés à l'école

[half ember]

Woops. I misunderstood. Thank you for the correction!