‘I’ or ‘me’? ‘She’ or ‘her’? ‘They’ or ‘them’? – English Grammar Pronoun Challenge!

How well do you know your pronouns? Do you know when to use "I" or "me", "they" or "them", and so on?

Or are you just guessing? Well, let's find out. Let's take a quick grammar challenge and find out.

So, we have four options on the board. Which of these are correct?

Do we say, "Me and John missed the meeting." Or, "John and me missed the meeting."

Or, "I and John missed the meeting." Or, "John and I missed the meeting."

Which one or ones do you think are correct? If you need a second, you can pause the video,

choose something, choose an answer, and then I'll give you the answer.

So, if you said this, sorry, it's wrong. If you said the second one, sorry, it's wrong.

If you said the third one, sorry, it's wrong. So, don't worry, I didn't trick you.

The fourth one is correct. Alright? Now, let's understand why this is correct

when all of the other ones are wrong. So, let's analyze these sentences.

I've written on the board here, "SVO". Do you know what the "SVO" stands for?

English is known as an SVO language, which means, usually, in a sentence, the order is

subject, verb, object. Okay? What is the subject? The subject does the action, the verb is the

word which is the action, okay? And the object receives the action. Okay? So, if we're talking

about "missed", missed what? The meeting. That's the object, okay?

Now, if there are any mistakes, they are based on a couple of reasons. One is we need to

know what type of subject to use, I'm sorry, what type of pronoun to use, and second, the

order of pronouns. So, let's first understand the two main types of pronouns that we're

dealing with. They are subject pronouns or object pronouns, okay? Subject pronouns do

the action, right? So, usually, they are at the start of the sentence. Object pronouns,

if they appear on that side, right, are at the end of sentences, usually. But right now,

on this board, I'm going to explain to you about the subject pronouns because that's

what we looked at on the first board. That's what we were trying to figure out. Why are

these three wrong and this one right? It's really easy.

So, let's look first at what the subject pronouns are and what the equivalent object pronoun

is. So, the subject pronouns are "I", "you", "we", "they", "he", "she", and "it". That's

it. Those are the subject pronouns. So, if you need to use a subject, okay, you can only

use one of these. You cannot use anything on the other side there, alright? So, when

we said here, "John and I" is the right answer. Why? Because we have the subject position,

right? In this case, the subject has two words in it. That's okay. We could say, "John, Mary,

and I". That's fine too. But this part of the sentence is the subject, right? So, what's

the subject pronoun that we can use if we want to represent the idea of "I"? It's only

the word "I", right? "John and I missed the meeting." We cannot use anything on this side

because those are object pronouns, okay? So, there are two things going on here. One

is that we have to know that this is the subject of the sentence, and so you can only use a

subject pronoun. Second, why is this one wrong, you're asking me? I said we used "I" here.

Why can't we say "I" and "John"? Why is it only "John and I"? Because in English, usually,

we put other people first, and then last, we say "I". So, we could say "John and I",

"John, Mary, and I", "John, Mary, Sylvia, and I". It doesn't matter how many people

you put before that. You could say "the team and I", okay? "The company and I", "the

group and I", "the organization and I", okay? But you will say "I" last. So, there

were two things. One, the type of pronoun was correct, was the subject pronoun, and

the order was because we put other people before "I". So, that's for you to understand

the subject pronouns.

Now, let's look at the object pronouns, okay? So, they are me, you, us, them, him, her,

and it, alright? So, as we said, the object pronouns receive the action, which is what

we will show now here in these example sentences. So, let's understand these sentences. "I called

Mary". In that sentence, what's the subject? "I". What's the verb? "Called". And what's

the object? "Mary", right? But now, let's turn that sentence around. "Mary called somebody".

So, now, "Mary" is the subject, "called" is the verb. So, "I called Mary", "Mary called",

"I called Mary", "Mary called", use the object, "me". Okay? So, in all of these sentences,

what's going to happen is what's on the subject side here is going to become the object on

this side, okay? So, "I called Mary", "Mary called me". "He called Mary", "Mary called",

"he called Mary", "Mary called him". Very good. Alright? You see the equivalent next

to that, the subject on this side, the object pronoun on that side. "We called Mary", "We

called Mary", "Mary called us", right? These are all the objects. And "They called Mary",

"They called Mary", "Mary called them". Okay, excellent. So, now, you see why we have to

use these object pronouns at the end of sentences, because they receive the action. They're usually

like this. Sometimes, we might say - we have to say "to them", "with them", "for them".

Sometimes these object pronouns have a preposition before them, but they belong on the other

side, they belong at the end of sentences. They do not belong in the subject side of

the sentence. So, that's why when we said "me and John", it cannot be, because that's

the subject side, right? So, we could only say "John and I" in the original board, okay?

Alright, let's go on from there to make sure that you have really mastered this. Okay,

now, for this exercise, no John and Mary, just all pronouns, alright? So, we have subject

pronouns and object pronouns, and you have to use them and switch them according to whatever

is needed. So, let's look at our sample sentences first. "I like him", "He likes me", and "Life

is fine", okay? So, this is the subject, verb, object. Subject, verb, object, but we're switching

them, right? The object becomes the subject, the subject here becomes the object. Let me

say it for you again, and you could say it aloud too. "I like him", "He likes me". Let's

do the same thing here. "She likes us _____ like _____", okay? "She likes us _____", and

then "We like her", okay? Let me just switch markers here for you. Okay, number two. "They

like me _____ like _____", "They like me", and "I like them", okay? You see what's happening?

We're switching. "You like her", and "She likes you", okay? Good. "We like them", and

what's the subject of this one? "They like us", okay? Good. And the last one, take your

time. If you need to, you can pause. "He likes her", and "She likes him", okay? So, I hope

that was really clear for you, but if it's not for any reasons, we do have another lesson

on this which I can - I'll give you a link to that one. You can also watch that as well,

but go to www.engvid.com, there you can do a quiz on this to make sure that you've really

mastered it. And why is this so important? Because these are very basic elements of English.

You really don't want to be making mistakes with the basic pronouns, especially mixing

the subject and the object, okay? So, if necessary, watch it again, do the exercises, and really

make sure that you're always using the subject pronouns for the subject and the object pronouns

for the object, alright? Take care, and all the best with your English. Bye for now.