English will mislead you. In many ways, English is a lazy
language. The example above shows how you can say 'her' or 'to her':
both are acceptable, even though 'her' looks like a direct object
pronoun. French is more strict than English: if the pronoun is a
direct object, you have to use 'le', 'la' or 'les', if it's indirect,
you have to use 'lui' or 'leur'.
But the biggest problem most people have is that they aren't really
aware if a pronoun is direct or indirect, precisely because you
don't need to know in English. When writing or speaking, students
of French tend (much to their teacher's chagrin) to think in English
and translate those thoughts into French as they write or speak.
They want to say
I give her flowers every day.
and conclude 'The French for 'her' is 'la', I'll write Je la
donne des fleurs chaque jour', which is wrong. They fail
to see the 'to' that is hidden in the English 'her'.
To avoid this, think in French! or failing this, when you write
your French sentence, try 'undoing' the pronoun (in other words
replace it with the longer noun phrase that it refers to) and see
if your instincts tell you to include an 'à'. You should come up
with something like
Je donne des fleurs à ma mère chaque jour.
(or whoever it is you give flowers to).
If there is an 'à', use 'lui' or 'leur'. The 'à'
is the difference between 'la' and 'lui'.
lui = à + la or le (when 'la' or 'le' is a pronoun)
leur = à + les (when 'les' is a pronoun)
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