What are English personal pronouns?
Personal pronouns are personal pronouns in English.
These are the short words we use instead of a person’s name, which is why they are called personal pronouns.
There are several kinds of pronouns, and let’s explain them in a simple, human way without diving too deeply into grammatical Latin.
I also talk about this on YouTube:
English personal pronouns in the singular are:
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ja: I, me
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ty: you
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on: he
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ona: she
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ono: it
We call he, she, and it collectively the third person singular, which will be important in the present simple tense.
And English personal pronouns for the plural are:
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my: we
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wy: you
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oni: they
Notice that in English, “you” means both singular and plural!
Confusion with the English personal pronoun you
Here, as you have probably noticed, ty and wy in English sound exactly the same. This is of course a never-ending source of misunderstandings, because when someone says “You are great!” you can never be sure whether they mean one specific person (You are great!), or everyone present (You are great!).
What is more, as we may remember from the article about articles, English does not have articles, which means you do not know whether the sentence above means “you are great” in a feminine or masculine sense, which only increases the confusion… In fact, though, this is good news for us, because we do not have to learn complicated declension rules, which learners of Polish or German have to deal with!
Now, one by one.
Who am I? English personal pronoun „I“ or „me“?
Generally, “I” is I.
We always write I in capital letters, because after all, we are the center of the universe, or at least that is how most people – not only English speakers – think about themselves!
To make things a little more complicated, there is also the word me, which is… also I.
In general, in English I is used at the beginning of a sentence,
whereas me is used in the middle or at the end of a sentence.
For example:
- I am happy.
(I am happy)
- Do you love me?
(Do you love me?)
- Where are you taking me?
(Where are you taking me?)
In English, we do not “swallow” personal pronouns!
As I mentioned, personal pronouns are the kind of pronouns that – surprise! – replace the person (that person’s name). In English, they are so important because we use them every time in a sentence!
In English, we do not leave them out.
For example, in the following sentence in Polish you can leave out the personal pronoun “I”:
- I am hungry – I am hungry.
We do not say “I am hungry” – that is, we can say it, but we do not have to. However, “I am hungry” is more natural for us. In English, there is only one option: “I am hungry” – I am hungry.
The same is true for the other personal pronouns:
- You are late! – You are late!
- You are right! – You are right!
- We have a lot of luggage. – We have a lot of luggage.
In short:
In English, we cannot omit personal pronouns,
as we often do in Polish.
When are English personal pronouns essential?
English personal pronouns are especially useful when we meet people from other countries and cannot understand what their names are, for example Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Even when someone introduces themselves letter by letter, it is still impossible to remember. We simply say you then, although remembering the name always looks better. But everything is an art of the possible…
The good news is that you does not only mean “ty”, but also “Pan” or “Pani”!
So you can address anyone using this personal pronoun!
Interestingly, once a difficult first name or surname gets into our head, it stays there for a long time. That will happen if we introduce ourselves to English speakers using our real names rather than their English translations!
And if you forget not only the name, but also the correct personal pronoun in English, you can always poetically say “my friend” or “darling” and so on.
English object pronouns
All right. But what if we want to give something to someone?
Then we use the rather scary-sounding “object pronouns.”
Object pronouns in the singular:
- Jane looked at me. (Jane looked at me.)
- Jane looked at you. (Jane looked at you.)
- Jane looked at him. (Jane looked at him.)
- Jane looked at her. (Jane looked at her.)
- Jane looked at it. (Jane looked at it.)
Object pronouns in the plural:
- Jane looked at us. (Jane looked at us.)
- Jane looked at you. (Jane looked at you.)
- Jane looked at them. (Jane looked at them.)
The same would be true in sentences like:
- I gave it to them. (I gave it to them.)
- I love you. (I love you.)
- Please marry me. (Please marry me.)
- Help her! (Help her!)
- Wait for him! (Wait for him!)
and so on.
Although, as you can see, personal pronouns are quite simple, that is not the end of the story!
What if something is “his” or “her”?
Then we need not a personal pronoun, but a so-called possessive adjective (for example, her house, his phone), which is often confused with the similarly looking possessive pronoun (This is mine!). But we will cover those in separate articles.
The twilight of personal pronouns?
Finally, as a curiosity, it can be mentioned that personal pronouns are going out of fashion at Western universities, where politically correct etiquette requires using the gender-neutral Chinese pronoun xe (pronounced “ze” or “zi”) so as not to impose any gender identity on anyone…
Forgot whether to say she or he in English? Or do not know whether to say he or she? Say xe!
Another trick is to say “they” for that one person (!), whose gender identity we do not want to impose.
- Customer will choose the option they will find most interesting.
(The customer will choose the option they consider most interesting.)
Read also: Is there still freedom of speech at English universities? (очаквайте скоро)
Exercises with English personal pronouns
One thing is to know all these grammatical names of pronouns, another is to use them correctly in direct conversation… What is needed here is speaking practice; no textbook can help us with that!
To be able to speak English, you have to start speaking English!
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Have you ever mixed up English personal pronouns and called a man “ma’am” or the other way around? Share your stories in the comments!
