Confusing Words - Me, Myself, I

Hello. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is an aspect of grammar. When is it

okay to say somebody's name and then followed by "and me" or "and I" or "and myself"? This

is an aspect of grammar that native speakers get confused about. But more than just confused

about, they avoid -- completely avoid sentences where they might say your friend's name "and

me". They completely avoid it because in British English, at least, it does have this association

with being common language, not being posh language. And people avoid it because they

don't want to sound common. But actually, there's a lot of misunderstanding about it.

Saying "and me" is really, really judged. But if you used it in a grammatically correct

way, there's absolutely nothing wrong can saying "and me". In fact, sometimes people

are wrong because they try to avoid it. So what you'll learn in this lesson, if you're

a native speaker, you'll not be confused anymore, but if you're learning English as well, maybe

you had a confusion about it, and you didn't really understand why it's different sometimes.

So you'll learn, and you won't be confused anymore.

So let's check what you already know. I've got some example sentences. Let's see if they're

right. Let's see if they're wrong. "Me and Tom went skiing." How does that one sound

to you? Did you think that one's right? This one is wrong. This one is wrong. We're going

to look at why later. But this one is wrong.

Second one. "Amjad and me played football." How is this one? This one is wrong. Slightly

better than the first because it's considered more polite to put the other person before

yourself. So it's slightly better in that respect, but still wrong.

Next example. "My mum and I went for lunch." What do you think about that one? Is that

one okay? This one's okay.

What about this one? "I and Janet study French." How does that one feel? Well, actually, this

one just sounds wrong. It should be swapped. If we say "Janet and I', it's okay, but no

one would really say it like that.

And this example -- more and more, people are saying "myself" because I think they're

a bit -- I have to tell you something else. In British English, if you say "and I" all

the time, it makes you sound quite grand and a little bit posh. And not everybody wants

to use that language. Not everybody wants to feel like they're using elegant language.

And for them, they don't like to say it. So it's being replaced a lot with "myself". Someone

might say "my mum and myself". So here's an example. "Myself and Leo are going on holiday."

How is this? Well, with "myself", you can put it first or you can put it second. You

can change the position. It's okay. My feeling about "myself" is also that it's a little

bit too formal just for everyday conversation. So I personally don't use it. I prefer the

other two ways of saying it, either the name "and I" or "me", as we'll get to in a minute.

So when we come back, we're going to look at the actual grammar. Why can we say it "and

I" sometimes, or why can we say "and me" sometimes?

Let's take a look at the grammatical reason why there's a difference and sometimes we

say "and I", and sometimes we say "and me". Well, it all comes down to the position of

the pronoun you're talking about. So if the sentence is correct, if "I" is in the subject

position -- so I'm talking about grammar now. How do you know it's in the subject position?

Well, you find the verb, the main verb. Here's the main verb. And if it's before the main

verb, then, it's in the subject position. But if it's after the main verb, it's in the

object position. So we have a name, and we have "I" -- "I" the pronoun. These are both

in the subject position. So this one's correct. These are all correct here as examples, but

we'll go through them all one by one.

"My husband and I like gardening." Where's the main verb in there? "Like" is the main

verb. Let's have a look at the subject position, then. "My husband", also "I" in the subject

position. This one is fine also.

A new example. "Ryan, Paul, and I share a flat." You can have more than one name in

a list, and then have it followed by "I". That's absolutely fine. Main verb is "share".

Everything before "share" is in the subject position. "I" is in the subject position.

It's okay.

And the next example is a question. "Shall Sarah and I help with the dishes?" "Shall"

is a verb, but it's not the main verb. "Help" is the main verb. Everything before "help"

is in the subject position. So "Sarah", the name, is in the subject position. But also,

"I" is in the subject position. So of course, this one's okay.

Now, when can we say "me"? When can we say "me"? The thing that confuses everyone. We

can say "me" if it's in the object position. So let's take a look and compare. "Sheila

invited Stacy and me." How do we know if it's in the object position? Well, we find the

main verb. Remember before, it's to the left of the verb? Well, this time, the object position

is to the right of the verb. So "Stacy" is a name. And "me" is in the object position,

so it's right. It's right. It's okay. You don't have to worry. You don't have to worry

that people are going to think you're common because you're saying it correctly.

Next example. "My boss asked me to stay late." Where's the main verb there? Because it's

a little bit confusing because there are two verbs. Well, the main verb is "asked". And

this is just the continuation of the sentence is in the present simple. So this is the second

verb. It's not the main verb. Everything before the main verb -- subject. After the main verb,

we're talking about the object position, now. And there's only "me" there. There's only

one pronoun. That's your object. There's no other name here or anything, so "me" is absolutely fine.

Next example. "Tom's sister reminded Jane and me to feed the cat." Again, no full stop.

What's our main verb? "Reminded" is our main verb here. So let's mark that. What's the

subject? Well, the subject position is "Tom's sister". What's in the object position? First

of all, "Jane" the name is in the object position. And that's followed by "me" as a pronoun.

So again, this one's okay. We don't need to worry about that. We can say that.

And let's look at the question form. "Will Alex apologize to Chris and me?" When we're

asking questions, the first question word or verb, that's not the main verb. The main

verb here is "apologize". To the left of the main verb, here's the subject. We don't see

"me" there, so there's no problem there. In the object position, do we see "me"? Yes,

we see "me".

But what we're going to do just now is find a way to check if your sentences are right.

Because if you're still not that confident using "and me", when you've got this check,

you'll be okay whenever you're writing in English. And then after, when you've said

it lots of times -- when you've written it loads of times and you feel more comfortable,

you'll be more comfortable in speech also.

So how to check that it's okay to say "and I" or it's okay to say "and me"? So you don't

even need to worry about subject and object. There's an easier way. Let's have a look at

the easy way.

So you remove the other name from the sentence. And if it makes sense, then it's okay. But

if it sounds wrong, you've got it the wrong way around. So we'll go through some examples here.

"Tom and I went to the party." We want to keep "I" there because we're checking to see

if it's okay here in this position. So I'm going to remove the other name. I'll just

use my finger. Rub it out. Does it make sense? "I went to the party." Yes, it makes sense.

Correct. I'll give it a tick.

And what about this one? "Tom and me went to the party." We're going to keep "me" in,

remove the other name. Does it make sense? "Me went to the party." It's okay in different

varieties of English, but not British or American English. It's definitely not standard. It's wrong.

And what's this one? This one's terrible. "Me and Tom went to the party." This is the

one that -- it's a really common one that really scares some people, and they don't

like to say that. So you hear it, but this is the one that I'm talking about that people

really don't like. So we don't need to check that one.

Next one. "Sheila invited me and Stacy." Okay, there's more than one name here, so what do

we do? We want to know if "me" is right. So let's take away the name closest to it because

it's in the -- it's either in the subject position or the object position with "me".

So we don't want it. By the way, it's in the object position. Does it make sense without

it? "Sheila invited me." Does it make sense? Yes.

And our last example. "Sheila invited Stacy and I." We've got the same thing happening.

We've got more than one name. So we need to remove the name closest to the pronoun. Does

it make sense when I remove that? Does it make sense? "Sheila invited I." No. Not okay.

So it should be clearer to you now. When you get more familiar with this structure and

you're saying it in speech, it does become a natural thing after a while. You don't need

to think about it. There's a quiz for you to do. You can go to www.engvid.com and do

the quiz. And then -- yeah, you don't need to be worried about all this. Is it posh?

Is it common stuff? You can say it with confidence whenever you say "name 'and me'". You don't

need to worry.

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