Object pronouns are the words in phrase that refer to people that receive the action of the verb. In the sentence “I love you”, the direct object is “you” and “I” is the subject.

I	love	you
Subject	verb	object

In Portuguese when the object is a personal pronoun (“you”), it changes from the subject pronoun form. Eu (I) for instance changes to me (me), tu (you) changes to te (you), and ela (she) to a (her):

Eu	te	amo
Subject	object	verb

As you can see in the example above, object pronouns typically go before the last verb of the phrase.

An exception to this is when the verb is in the imperative mood for positive commands. In that case it comes after the verb and attached with a hyphen:

Ouça-me.
Listen to me.

In this lesson you will learn the pronouns as they are used for the direct objects.

The lesson Object Pronouns II discusses how these words are used as indirect objects as well as when they are used in the middle of a verb and after verbs with special endings.