Grammar Unit 2.1: Pronouns – Personal Pronouns

Pronouns are useful as they help to make sentences less awkward. They also help to reduce the repetition of nouns in a sentence.

For example:

My friend and I went to the zoo. My friend and I took a taxi to the zoo and my friend and I brought food with my friend and me for lunch too.

This sentence keeps repeating the phrase “my friend and I”. It is so irritating. Since readers already know that the paragraph is talking about “my friend and I”, we can just use “we” for the rest of the sentences. Like this:

My friend and I went to the zoo. We took and taxi to the zoo and we brought food with us for lunch too.

I changed “my friend and I” to “we” and “my friend and me” to us.

Again, imagine having to repeat someone’s name so many times when everyone already knows whom you are talking about.

Instead of writing:

Michelle is my sister. Michelle is in Grade 2 and is very good at Mathematics. Michelle likes to play football and drink milkshakes.

Write:

Michelle is my sister. She is in Grade 2 and is very good at Mathematics. She likes to play football and drink milkshakes.

In the above sentence, there is no need to repeat Michelle’s name because all the readers/listeners already know that Michelle is the topic.

In this post, we will learn about personal pronouns.

Personal pronouns are used when we already know who are involved in the topic. There are two groups of personal pronouns – subject and object.

The subject is the person/animal/thing that is doing an action. The subject is also the topic of the sentence, the focus of the conversation/discussion.

The object is the person/animal/thing that is receiving the action.

Using personal pronouns in sentences

	Subject	Object
1st person	1. I went to the zoo. 2. We sang a song.	1. My friend helped me. 2. Mr Lee taught us.
2nd person	1. You love milk.	1. I love you.
3rd person	1. He writes books. 2. She teaches children. 3. It barks at people. 4. They won the match.	1. I will help him. 2. The teacher saw her. 3. My brother lost it. 4. We defeated them.