Spanish Grammar/Indirect Object Pronouns

The indirect object of a sentence is a noun or noun phrase that is secondarily affected by the action of a transitive verb, like "me" in sentence (1):

(1) She brings me the food.*

* In English, sentence (2) can also be phrased as:

(1a) She brings the food to me.

* In Spanish, this is expressed through either "Ella me trae la comida." or  "Ella me trae la comida a mí."

The direct object and the indirect object are always nouns, noun phrases, or pronouns. Nouns and noun phrases can be replaced by pronouns:

(1) She brings it.

(2) She brings me the food.

(3) She brings me it.

(4) She brings it to me.

In Spanish, these sentences would look like this:

(1) Ella la trae.

(2) Ella me trae la comida.

(3) Ella la me trae.

(4) Ella me la trae.

When both direct and indirect object pronouns are being used in a sentence, the indirect object pronoun comes first:

(4) Ella me la trae.

Let's look at another example.

(1) Yo leí el libro.

(2) Yo le leí el libro (a la niña).

When

(3) Yo se lo leí.