fyrebeest

[trim ginkgo]

Please be patient

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[dire gull]

yes, it's a stressed pronoun

stressed pronouns appear out of position, so to speak

[plush bloom]

ok

so that rule overrides the fact that the sentence is a "direct object"

[dire gull]

you will only see le as a pronoun directly connected to the verb

[dire gull]

this sentence is not a direct object

lui is the object of a preposition

all objects of prepositions are stressed pronouns

[plush bloom]

ok

[dire gull]

a direct object would be "Je le pense" which is also possible, although it means something different

[plush bloom]

what's the difference? Is one more emphasized than the other?

[dire gull]

je pense a lui means "I think of him"

je le pense is a little harder to translate directly into english

but for instance,
"ce mec-là ressemble a ton père.
Ah oui, quand je l'ai vu pour la première fois, je l'ai pensé moi aussi, mais pas maintenant"

"cette activité est plus difficile que je le pensais"

[wide widget]

Direct objects never have a preposition before them, that's what makes them direct.

[dire gull]

that's not what makes them direct... spanish has direct objects which take a proposition

but it is true as a rule in french

[wide widget]

Je pense à Michel / à lui => indirect because of the preposition à before the object
Il se souvient d'Élise / d'elle => indirect because of the preposition de before the object

There is no preposition before « J'aime Élise » which makes it direct.

[wide widget]

That's irrelevant. Spanish has a progressive aspect like English where you take the copula and a gerund to mark it like 'I am studying / Estoy estudiando' but you can't make the same stuff in French just because English/Spanish has it. « Je suis étudiant » is not a valid translation for 'I am studying'.

[dire gull]

what does a progressive aspect have to do with this

[wide widget]

My point is that just because it's true in Spanish it's not always going to be true in French, and vice-versa. In Spanish there may be direct objects with a preposition but in French if there's a preposition before the object, it's indirect. Full stop.

[dire gull]

consider for example "Pienso en Michel" = "Je pense à Michel", while "Veo a Michel" = "Je vois Michel"

[dire gull]

i already said it's true in french, just nitpicking your implication that a direct object is made direct because of a lack of prepositions

[quaint flicker]

spanish has 0 bearing on french ultimately. we don't have this construction in french

preposition = indirect object all the time in french

[dire gull]

yes of course

but what's considered a direct object isn't determined by prepositions or lack thereof

it just happens that direct objects never take prepositions in french

[wide widget]

Sure but it's not like I'm stating a generality on all languages. We're in a French learning server, responding to a question about French; the inclusion of Spanish was just an unnecessary detail but I digress. Let's just leave it at that and move on.

[dire gull]

i apoligize, i shouldn't have made so much of a simple mistake

[quaint flicker]

they're entirely different constructions.

je le pense -> i think it/i think so (roughly)
je pense à lui -> i think of him

[wide widget]

no worries

[dire gull]

just realized

“j’ai mangé des pommes”