Ti piace la lingua italiana? Ti interessa la nostra cultura? A me sono sempre piaciute le lingue straniere, e mi fa piacere spiegare a voi come funziona la grammatica italiana.

Do you like the Italian language? Are you interested in our culture? I have always liked foreign languages, and I enjoy explaining to you how Italian grammar works.

Each of the above sentences makes use of the indirect object. Let’s identify them:

Ti piace la lingua italiana? Ti interessa la nostra cultura? A me sono sempre piaciute le lingue straniere, e mi fa piacere spiegare a voi come funziona la grammatica italiana.

As you will see, there are two ways of expressing the indirect object.
The first uses the preposition ‘a’ before the pronoun, e.g. ‘a me, a te, a lui‘ etc. This is known as the stressed pronoun.
The second is a combination of the preposition and the pronoun, e.g. ‘mi, ti, gli‘ etc. This is known as the unstressed pronoun.

So, how do I know which to use?

Well, the difference is often subtle, and is only really understood after a lot of practical use.
The unstressed pronoun is more common, but the stressed pronoun is very important when we want to express emphasis or contrast.

Now take another look at these two sentences:
Ti piace la lingua italiana? A me sono sempre piaciute le lingue straniere (do you like the Italian language? I have always liked foreign languages).
In the first sentence the pronoun ‘you’ is unstressed, but in the second, emphasis has been put on ‘me’ by using the stressed pronoun ‘a me’, which in English would be somewhat similar to saying ‘I, personally, have always liked … etc’.

Here are some further examples that show where we use either stressed or unstressed pronouns:

Mario mi ha regalato un libro (unstressed: Mario gave a book)

a me Mario ha regalato un libro, e a te? (stressed, contrast: Mario gave me a book, and what did he give to you?)

quando ti parlo sembri sempre distratto (unstressed: when I talk to you you always seem distracted)

smettila di muoverti, sto parlando a te! (stressed, emphasis: stop moving, I’m talking to you!)

prima ho incontrato tua sorella e le ho dato i soldi (unstressed: I met your sister earlier on and gave her the money)

“I soldi li ho dati a lei“, indicando la ragazza vicino alla finestra (stressed, emphasis: “I gave the money to her” pointing to a girl near the window)

a proposito di Mario, gli devi telefonare (unstressed: talking of Mario, you must phone him)

Mario? no, a lui proprio non voglio telefonare (stressed, emphasis: Mario? no, I really don’t want to phone him)

Lucia ci ha mandato una cartolina dalla Calabria (unstressed: Lucia sent us a postcard from Calabria)

Lucia ha mandato una cartolina alla mamma, ma a noi niente (stressed, contrast: Lucia sent a postcard to mother, but nothing to us)

a noi piacerebbe andare al cinema stasera; a voi? (stressed, contrast: we would like to go to cinema tonight, what about you?)

vi piacerebbe andare al cinema stasera? (unstressed: would you like to go to the cinema tonight?)

ho incontrato i Rossi e gli ho chiesto se avevano già visto la mostra fotografica (unstressed: I met the Rossis and I asked them if they’d already seen the photo exhibition)

i Rossi? no, a loro non l’ho chiesto, ma l’ho chiesto ad Annalisa e Claudio (stressed, contrast: The Rossis? no, I haven’t asked them, but I’ve asked Annalisa and Claudio)

For some more information about indirect personal pronouns take a look at the following posts:

Forme Toniche

Forme Atone

Pronomi Combinati Part 1

Pronomi Combinati Part 2