Sentences: Object

Where are we now? We know about sentences. We know how to start and end one. We know they have a verb (what’s happening) and a subject (who or what is making that happen).

Let’s dive deeper.

Direct Object

Alright, we have a sentence like “a man eats”. But what does he eat? We don’t know!

Most actions have consequences. Someone is on the receiving end. The action happens to something.

Remark

In Dutch this is, funnily enough, called a “victim” or “suffering subject”

Let’s add our third word type.

Direct Object: to what or whom the action is applied.

Example

The man eats the apple (👨 🍽️ 🍏)

Example

The girl reads a book (👧 📖)

You can often find this by putting “what?!” after a sentence. Like talking to yourself:

“The man eats”
“Huh, the man eats what!?”
“An apple!”

Indirect Object

Let’s go a step further. Sometimes a verb does not directly target you, but you are part of it.

These are called “ditransitive verbs” and the list is quite small. It has every verb which enables somebody else to receive the result of an action. (For example, the verb “receive” I just used!)

Indirect object: who receives the result of the action on the object.

It’s usually about a secondary goal. Somebody who stands by while the subject does something. The subject did all the work, and the other just gets the end result.

Example

The teacher gives a book to his daughter (👨‍🏫 📖 👧)

The verb “gives” applies to the book. That’s what’s being given. The boy just stands by and receives it in the end.

Example

The girl throws the stone to the window (👧 🪨 🪟)

The verb “throws” applies to the stone. That’s what’s benig thrown. But the window participates by, well, getting hit by that stone.

As you see, this only applies to verbs that can have an indirect object. Eating cannot, for example. If you eat an apple, then you can’t also name somebody else that receives the eaten apple.

It’s not required to place the words in this order. You can put the indirect object before the direct object.

Example

The teacher gave cake to the students => The teacher gave the students cake. (👨‍🏫 🎓 🍰)

As you read this course, you’ll see that most words can be moved around freely in a sentence. But that doesn’t mean it’s recommended. Try to keep the structure of “subject > verb > direct object > indirect object”.

Continue with this course