Stressed/Unstressed Personal Pronouns

• Italian personal pronouns have two forms when they are used in the direct object case: a stressed form and an unstressed one.
   

• The stressed form is so called because it carries a prominent accent, while the unstressed form tends to merge with the rest of the sentence without a noticeable accent being heard.
  
  NOTE : In some expressive contexts, also the unstressed form becomes stressed.
   

• Here is the list of both the stressed and unstressed forms. As you can see from the examples, the position of the stressed forms is always AFTER the verb while the position of the unstressed forms is always BEFORE the verb.
   

  PERSON	SUBJECT FORM	DIRECT OBJECT STRESSED FORM	EXAMPLE	ENGLISH	DIRECT OBJECT UNSTRESSED FORM	EXAMPLE
  I	io	me	tu vedi me	you see me	mi	tu mi vedi
  II	tu/te	te	io vedo te	I see you	ti	io ti vedo
  III (M)	lui	lui	io vedo lui	I see him	lo	io lo vedo
  III (F)	lei	lei	io vedo lei	I see her	la	io la vedo
  IV	noi	noi	tu vedi noi	you see us	ci	tu ci vedi
  V	voi	voi	io vedo voi	I see you	vi	io vi vedo
  VI	loro	loro	io vedo loro	I see them	li (m) le (f)	io li vedo io le vedo

   

• Generally speaking, these two forms should not be considered as interchangeable. Using the one instead of the other can generate examples of clumsy Italian, although, luckily, there will be no problem in being understood. It's understandable that English speakers living in Italy should tend to prefer the stressed forms as this feels much more similar to the way English works but if the student wants to acquire real fluency then he or she should try to use the unstressed forms as much as possible.