“He and I” or “Him and me”? Learn the difference! (English Pronoun Rules)

Hey.

Yeah.

Oh, what am I doing later?

Oh, well, my wife and I are going to see a movie.

Yeah.

What about you and Debra?

Okay.

Yeah.

So, I'll see you and her there.

Yeah.

That's fine.

Okay.

Yeah.

We'll be there.

Okay.

Thanks.

Bye.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll put that there for now.

Oh.

Hey, everyone.

I'm Alex.

Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on English pronoun order.

So, in this video, I will give you what are considered to be the grammatical rules or

grammatical preferences, in some cases, for pronoun order in English.

I will give you what is technically correct,

but I will also tell you what you will hear

in public, in movies, and other areas where pronoun order sometimes is not followed or

the rules of subjects and objects are not followed.

So, to begin, the two basics.

One of the most common questions I get is, "Should I start a sentence with 'him and I'

or 'he and I' or etc.?"

And the first rule is for subject pronouns, right?

We use subject pronouns in the subject position.

So, let's look at the subject pronouns first.

The subject pronouns are "I", "you", "he", "she", "we", and "they".

So, these are subject pronouns because they do actions, right?

So, you always follow a subject pronoun with some kind of action.

So, "Darren and I went out for coffee."

If you're ever not sure whether you should use "me" or "I" in this position, all you

have to do is erase the other person's name

and kind of say, "Wait, is it correct to say

'I went out for coffee' or 'me went out for coffee'?"

"Oh, yeah.

I went out for coffee."

So, "Darren and I went out for coffee."

"You and he need to talk."

Okay?

So, I know you might say, "Ah, but 'you' and 'him' sounds so good in this case.

'You' and 'him' need to talk."

Nope, because you would never say, "Him need to talk."

You would say, "He needs to talk," for example, or "Him needs to talk."

No.

So, "You and he need to talk."

So, subject position, doing an action.

You need to use a subject pronoun.

Now, in casual speech, in everyday speech, people don't always follow this rule.

I'm sure that sometimes I might not follow this rule.

I try to follow this rule all the time, but sometimes I will say, "Oh, my sister and me

went out for breakfast."

Right?

"My sister and me did something."

This is technically, grammatically incorrect,

but you might hear it in casual situations.

However, if you are writing an essay, if you

are writing anything academic, professional,

make sure you stick to the actual rules.

And rule number one, use subject pronouns in the subject position.

And this makes rule number two very logical as well.

Use object pronouns in the object position.

So, the object pronouns are "me", "me", "me",

"me", "me", "you", "him", "her", "us", "them".

Right?

So, when they are being acted upon, so objects can be...

They can come after prepositions, they can

come after verbs, usually they are receiving

an action or they are the object of something.

So, for example, "Tim spoke to her and me."

Right?

"Tim spoke...

Who did he speak to?

Oh, he spoke to her, he spoke to me."

Now, you might think you can say, "Tim spoke to her and I."

It sounds nice.

It sounds like it's formal, and yeah, that should be proper.

This is actually a hypercorrection.

Okay?

So, this means that it's corrected, and it sounds like it's formal, and it sounds like

it's more proper, but it's actually grammatically

incorrect to say, "Tim spoke to her and I."

It's like, no, you don't say, "Tim spoke to I", you say, "Tim spoke to me."

So, "Tim spoke to her and me."

Next example, "I saw you and him at the cafe."

So, "I saw you", right?

I saw...

I did the action.

I saw you.

What's beautiful about "you" is it's the subject and the object.

You're never wrong with "you".

So, "I saw you and him", right?

At the cafe.

Okay.

You would never say, "I saw he and you" or "I saw you and he" because you can't say,

"I saw he".

No.

"I saw him.

I saw him", the object, at the cafe.

Okay.

Again, if you say, "Tim spoke to her and I", "her and I", I want...

I don't know if it's an English accent, a

British accent, or an Australian accent that

I'm doing now.

So, "her and me", "her and I", eh?

No?

Okay.

I apologize to all of my Australian viewers.

If you are an Australian viewer, if you are

someone living in Australia learning English,

say hello in the comments.

Tell me how terrible my accent is.

Okay.

These are the basics.

Subject, subject position, object, object position.

Simple enough.

Sometimes, people mix them up in casual speech.

Now, let's look at the order.

What should the order be?

So, one rule, place the first person at the end.

This is especially true when you are dealing

with multiple subjects in the subject position.

So, "He and I left work early."

"Tanya and I don't get along."

It sounds weird if I say, "I and he left work early."

"I and Tanya don't get along."

In the subject position, it just sounds so good just to say, "He and I", "she and I",

right?

"Tanya and I".

It sounds really nice when it's put in that order, and that's why this is the order.

So, next, we have, "The bus didn't stop for him and me."

Okay.

If you read the Associated Press, the rule from

the Associated Press, they say that pronoun

order in some cases doesn't matter.

It just depends what you want to emphasize.

So, in the case of the object, I would agree.

I think that if you say, "The bus didn't stop for me and him."

It's perfectly fine.

It didn't stop for me, and it didn't stop for him.

It didn't stop for us.

However, if you do read, I think it's Collins,

Collins says that, "No, you have to place

the first person at the end."

So, "him" and "me" is what you have to do.

Now, a lot of people say...

I hesitate to use "a lot of people".

I will say, "Some people say..."

The reason you put "I" last is that it's more

polite that you put other people before yourself

and that you put yourself last.

So, this is one explanation for this rule.

So, again, so far, basics, subject and subject

position, object and object, first person

at the end.

Okay.

We got some more.

Follow me.

Follow me.

Come here.

Come here.

Okay.

Rule number four.

For singular pronouns, the most common order

is second person, third person, and first

person.

As we have mentioned, first person always at

the end feels good, especially in the subject

position.

So, second is always you, right?

The person standing right in front of you.

And then third person, oh, he and she.

And first person is I.

So, listen, you, he, and I need to talk, right?

You, he, and I.

He, you, and I.

It sounds okay, but again, the most common order is second, third, and first person.

And this is also taken from the Collins Dictionary,

so if you refer to Collins, they will tell

you second, third, and first.

And here, they saw you, her, and me together.

Now, in this case, it's just much more common just to say "us", right?

They saw us together.

But for the purposes of showing this rule in action, I wrote, "They saw you, her, and

me together."

Okay.

And you're saying, "Wait, is it I or me?"

Wait, do you say, "They saw I" or "They saw me"?

They saw me, right?

So, they saw you, her, and me together.

Remember rule two, objects for object position.

All right, rule five.

For plural pronouns, now it gets a little wilder.

The most common order is third person, second person, and first person.

So, you go, "They, you, and we."

These are three groups of people, right?

So, they, that group, you, your group, and we, like my group, need to discuss this.

Now, of course, you can also just say "we", right?

We need to discuss this.

All of us need to discuss this.

But if you feel the need to separate between

"they", "you", and "we", make sure you're

going third person, second person, first person.

And "He yelled at them and us."

Now, there's a wonderful Pink Floyd song called

"Us and Them", which, according to certain

online sources and reputable sources, they

might say, "Oh, that's a little ungrammatical,"

or "That's a little uncommon."

So, again, when it comes to, sorry, when it

comes to the object position, I find you have

a little more flexibility with playing with

the order and which one you want to emphasize.

And then, finally, rule number six.

Proper nouns are usually placed at the end,

with the exception of rule number three, where

"I", the first person, is always placed at the end.

Proper nouns, this just means names, the names of people.

So, "She and Tom are a couple."

"Tom and she are a couple."

It sounds weird, right?

It's like, no, no, "She and Tom", right?

"He and Bill", whatever it is, right?

So, "She and Tom are a couple."

Here, "Are you and Leah friends?"

"Are Leah and you friends?"

That's not too bad.

But, yeah, "Are you and Leah friends?"

So, usually, you want to place the proper noun at the end.

Yeah, "We called him and Jan."

Right?

"We called him and Jan."

And, again, the only exception to this would be

rule three, where "me" or "I" comes at the end.

So, just like here, do I have one here?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so you would...

Okay, earlier in the video, you saw, like, "Tom

and I", "Billy and I", "Jan and I", "Jim and me",

right?

So, yeah, make sure you keep that in mind as well.

Okay, so today we have looked at the basics

of English pronouns with subjects and objects,

and we have looked at some of the common uses

or preferred uses when it comes to the order

of pronouns.

If you have any questions about this, please

leave them in the comments, and make sure

you do the quiz on www.engvid.com.

So, I will see you later.

Thanks so much.

Tell you and Barbara, your friend Barbara,

tell her and you, or you and her, I don't know,

you tell me in the comments which answer is

correct according to what we have discussed.

Thank you very much.

Good luck.

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