Common English Errors: I or me? She or her? They or them?

Hi, my name is Rebecca and in today's lesson we're going to talk about personal pronouns.

Now these are often confused by many students who are learning English.

So let's look at what they are and why they cause confusion and how to clarify in your

mind which one to use in which situation, ok?

So we have pronouns here that are used as the subject and we have another line of pronouns

here which are used as the object in a sentence.

So let's look at an example.

We could say, for example, I like John, right, but John likes me.

In the first sentence, I is being used as the subject, in the second sentence, me is

being used as the object.

You like John, John likes you, he likes John, John likes him, she likes John, John likes

her, we like John, John likes us, they like John, John likes them, ok?

You see how in the first sentence in each case we were using the subject pronoun, right,

and in the second sentence we were using the object pronoun.

Let's look at some more examples.

So if you're using it as a subject, you would say, I like ice cream.

Not me like ice cream, but I like ice cream.

Sometimes children, when they're really young, they get confused and they say things like

me like ice cream, but it's not correct, in correct English we would say, I like ice cream.

He plays tennis, not him plays tennis, but he plays tennis because we're using it as

a subject of the sentence.

She and I are going out.

She and I are going out.

We don't say her and me are going out because we need to use these pronouns as the subject

of the sentence.

Now, another small point is that when we talk about some other people as well as I, right,

then we usually mention the other people first and we mention I last, ok?

She and I, we don't usually say I and she, alright?

Now if it's being used as the object in a sentence, then we would use this second row.

Please help me, not please help I, please help me.

Don't call them, right, not don't call they, but don't call them.

Please tell her, please tell her to call him.

It's being used as the object of the sentence.

Also we use these object pronouns after prepositions.

For example, I went with them, with is the preposition.

We don't say with they, but with them.

She sent it to me, not she sent it to I, but she sent it to me, alright?

And also we use them, these second form, the object forms, with the verb to be.

For example, somebody knocks on the door and you say "Who's there?"

And somebody says "It's me", "It's him", "It's her", "It's them".

So we also use these with the verb to be, alright?

Please make sure you go over this, this is quite a fundamental point in English.

You want to make sure that you don't make mistakes with these basic points in English.

And if you'd like to do a quiz on this, please visit our website www.engvid.com.

Thanks for watching.

Bye for now.