One thing that really grinds my gears in French is the pronouns. Whenever I watch French movies or documentaries, I always see the French using le or la for people instead of lui. Now, how can I as a French learner make a distinction?
Is there any specific rule for using le or la for replacing people's name in sentences? It's pretty simple for objects but for people, it's rather difficult, especially, when you have the pronoun "lui" which can be used for both males and females.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Je vois Tom -> Je le vois
Je vois Marie -> Je la vois.
Lui is the dative case of il and elle : there is a particule of attribution between the verb and the object (generally "à"). It's called a COI in french (complément d'objet indirect) because the object doesn't follow directly the verb: there is a particule.
Je parle à Tom -> Je lui parle (I speak TO/WITH Tom) (in english there is also a particule, I'm not sure which :))
Je donne un cadeau à Marie -> Je lui donne un cadeau. (I give a present TO Marie)
There are obliques cases for other particules like 'de": in russian it would be called a "prepositional case", in french I don't know.
Je parle de Tom -> Je parle de lui
Je parle de Marie -> Je parle d'elle
Je parle de la voiture-> J'en parle (voiture is not a person, so I use 'en' instead of lui or elle)
I do not completely understand your question. You have to give an example of sentences that you find confusing.
'Le' and 'lui' referring to a person are not interchangeable: 'lui' is 'dative'. E.g. Je lui ai dit: I said to him. vs Je l'ai vu: I saw him.
If you give some examples and explain what you find specifically confusing about them we can try and solve this for you.
