“I” or “ME”?

Are you confused about when to use "I" and when to use "me" in English?

Well, in this lesson, I'm going to explain to you exactly what the difference is and

when to use each one of them.

Plus, you get two lessons for the price of

one because we will also discuss and explain

English word order because you need to understand

a little bit about the basics of English word

order in order to be able to use these two

important and very common pronouns correctly.

Okay?

So, let's get started.

So, if we look at the board, I have lots of sentences here.

You will see "I", you will see "me", and the board is divided in a certain way.

So why?

It's divided in this way because that's how English is.

It's...

It's... Starts with...

A typical English sentence should start with

a subject, a verb, and what we call an object.

So, what does that mean?

Subject, object.

You hear these words, what do they mean?

Okay.

So, the subject of a sentence is the...

The doer.

Okay?

Who is doing the action.

So, I am doing the action.

So, I am the subject, okay?

In this sentence, I called Maria.

What's the action that I'm doing?

Called, that's the verb.

So, let's put an "s" here for subject.

This is...

What did I do?

I called.

This is the verb, the action that I did.

And then I called Maria.

So, Maria is the object.

Now, the object in English grammar is the word that receives the action.

Okay?

I did the action, Maria received the action because she received my call.

Okay?

So, subject, verb, object.

It's sometimes called "SVO", and English is known as an "SVO" language.

Not all languages are like this.

Your language may not be like this, which is why you might be getting confused.

You might sometimes have all the right words in the sentence, but they're not...

It still doesn't sound natural somehow.

Or people, when they listen to you, might say, "Sorry, what did you say?"

Because they're expecting to hear information

given in this order, subject, verb, object.

Okay?

And now you know what the object is.

The object is what has received the action of the verb.

Okay?

And the subject is the doer of the action.

Now, "I" and "me" are both pronouns.

Okay?

So, a pronoun means "me" stands for me.

Okay?

And "I" also stands for me.

So, these are pronouns.

We have many pronouns in English.

Okay?

This is just a noun, Maria, so don't worry about that.

So, the question is whether you use this pronoun or this pronoun.

So, "I" is always a subject pronoun.

It cannot be on that side there with the object.

Okay?

"Me" is an object pronoun.

"Me" receives the action.

All right?

We're going to see that by looking at lots of examples, but "I" does the action.

So, "I called Maria", right?

That's one sentence.

It's correct because "I" is always a subject,

and that's where we have it, in the right

place.

But let's look at another sentence.

"Maria called me."

Okay?

Now, "me" is the object, "me" received the action.

In this case, the call.

So, "me" is always an object, so it's in the right place here.

"I called Maria", "Maria called me".

Good.

Let's look at another example, because sometimes

people get that right, but when there are

other people mentioned, they start getting

confused, like, "Okay, now what do I do with

all these other names?

What's the right order?"

Okay?

So, it's like this.

There is actually a rule; it's not chance.

So, this is what we do in English, and again,

it may not be that way in your language.

So, let's suppose you're talking about two people.

So, then we say, "John and I helped Maria."

Okay?

So, now we have two subjects here.

Right?

There's John and there's I.

So, which do we put first?

Does it matter?

Yes, it matters.

So, first of all, we have to use "I" because

"I" is the subject that... is in the subject

position.

Right?

But we put other people in English before ourselves.

Okay?

So, whether you have John and I, or you have

John, Mary, and I, or you have John, Bill,

Mary, and I, "I" is always last.

So, we give other people kind of the honour,

we mention them first, and we say, "And I",

okay?

Still part of the subject.

This is all part of the subject.

It's a compound subject.

Doesn't matter; we're still saying "I".

So, "John and I helped Maria."

Okay?

"Maria", in this case, is the object.

Okay?

And the other kind of sentence, "Maria helped John and me."

Okay?

Again, we see "me" is the object.

Right?

But we have another one.

We have "John" too.

So, is there an order on that side?

Yeah.

We see it's the same order.

We mention other people first.

We don't usually say in good English, "Maria helped me and John."

People...

You might hear people saying that, but it's not formal, it's not officially correct.

Okay?

So, we say, "Maria helped John and me", or "Maria helped John, and Bill, and Mary, and

me."

Okay?

But again, "me" comes last, and "me" is over here because it's the object.

All right.

Now, sometimes the sentence has a little bit more information.

Right?

You said, "Okay, Rebecca, but every sentence

doesn't have just, like, three or four words."

You're right.

Sometimes there's more.

So, let's see what happens.

"I made a cake for Maria."

Now, what subject we know, "I", verb, "made".

Made what?

"I made a cake", so now in this case, this is the subject, this is the verb, this is

an object.

In this case, it becomes a direct object.

Okay?

Because I made what?

A cake.

A cake.

And then, what else?

What other information we have?

For Maria.

So, this part becomes...

Maria becomes the indirect object because

we are making it for Maria, but we have this

other information here about a cake.

So, also, this is important.

Why?

Because subject, verb, direct object has to come first, and then the other information.

So, first we want to know what did we make?

So, what happens with some students, and that's

because of their languages, so sometimes they

change this order.

They might say, "I made for Maria a cake."

And in English, that wouldn't be right because

we want to know "made", "made what", so tell

me that first.

"I made a cake", and then the additional information, "for Maria".

Okay?

Now, let's continue and see what happens with the "I" and the "me".

Now, "Maria made her a cake", same thing, "for me".

So, again, you will see that "me" is in this

position, and "me" is very often after any

kind of preposition.

Here we'll see "for me", here we'll see "with

me", here we'll see "to me", "before me",

"after me".

Okay?

Any preposition, what comes after that is

going to be this word, "me", not "I", because

"I" is on the other side, it's the subject.

Okay?

It's...

But after any preposition, you're going to say "me".

All right?

Let's look at some more examples.

"I had", okay, "I", subject, "had", verb, "dinner", direct object.

Okay?

Okay?

And then "with Maria", okay, "Maria" is the

indirect object, or "Maria had", what, "dinner

with me".

Okay?

So, then, again, you see "me" playing the role of the object, but it's a little bit

more detailed object, it's an indirect object because this is the direct object.

So, again, it would be incorrect to say "Maria had with me dinner".

Okay?

We don't expect that.

And when people get confused, if you're speaking,

it may be because this word order is confusing

them.

You might be saying all the right words, but

we also have to try to maintain the order

that they expect to hear.

They expect to hear what this is referring to directly.

Okay?

Let's look at the last one.

"I sent a letter to Maria."

Now, you tell me, what's "I"?

What is it?

What part of speech?

The subject.

What's "sent"?

It's the verb.

Good.

"Sent" what?

"A letter".

What's that?

That's the direct object.

Okay?

Sorry, I can, you know, put dots, but I didn't want to waste time.

All right?

And then, "to Maria".

Okay?

So, this is the indirect object.

"Maria" is the indirect object.

Or we could say, "Maria sent a letter to me".

Again, that's the indirect object, but again,

we're always saying after a preposition, "to

me", "with me", "for me", "from me".

This letter is from me.

Not this letter is from I. This letter is from me.

So, that's an easy way to remember also, that

if you have the preposition, right, then you're

going to say "me".

You're not going to say "I".

All right?

So, I hope you understood that.

"I" is the subject, "me" is the object.

All right.

Good.

Now, let's practice it a little bit so you're really sure about this part.

So, let's get started.

Ready?

Number one.

"Me and my sister love pizza."

Is that correct?

I hope you said no.

There are actually two mistakes here.

Can you find them?

So, the mistake is in this part, "me and my sister".

So, what should it be?

It should be...

Well, tell me.

Ready?

Let's start.

My sister and I. Okay?

Not "me and my sister", because first of all,

we want "I" because it's the subject, and

then secondly, we want the correct word order,

so we want to put "my sister" first, "my

sister and I love pizza."

Okay?

Good.

I hope you got that one.

Let's look at number two.

"I and my wife speak English."

Is that correct?

Well, first, I want to make your life a little

bit easier and tell you that nothing is correct

here. Okay?

There is a mistake in each of them.

So, let's fix the mistakes.

So, what should it be?

Ready?

What's the mistake here in this part?

It's a word order kind of mistake, so this time the person did say "I" as the subject,

but they said "I" first, and we don't do that in English.

It should be, "My wife and I speak English."

Okay?

There we go.

Now it's fine.

Now it's perfect, actually.

All right, number three.

"She and me met for lunch."

Now we're looking at this section here, "she and me".

Is that correct?

It's not.

So, what should it be?

It should be "she and I", okay?

"She and I", because "I" is the subject, right?

"Me" is the object, and here we didn't have an object; we had a subject.

All right.

"Susan invited Bill and I to the wedding."

Is that correct?

No, we know it's not.

Let's look at this part, "Bill and I".

What should it be?

"Susan invited Bill and me", okay?

Because it's the object.

"Susan" is the subject, "invited" is the verb.

Invited whom?

"Invited Bill and me", okay?

That's it.

It's that simple.

All right, let's go on.

Number five.

"Robert sent the book to I."

No, not exactly.

A mistake is here.

What should it be?

"Robert sent the book to me."

You got it, okay?

And also remember, "to me", "for me", "with me", okay?

"From me", all of those other prepositions, "about me", "after me", "before me", just

keep saying them and you won't go wrong because

afterwards if somebody says anything different,

you're going to say, "No, no, that's not right.

That just doesn't sound right."

And eventually, that's what you want to do.

You don't want to have to analyze every time,

okay, which is the subject, which is the object.

You just want to get used to it and know that

what's in the beginning is usually "I" and

what's at the end is usually "me", all right?

So when we start the sentence, "I did this",

"I went here", "I finished this", "I completed

my English", "I spoke English", "I wrote English", okay?

Or whatever verb you want to use.

And you can do that, drill it into yourself that way by writing for yourself or saying

out loud right after you watch this video, say five sentences with "I" and a verb.

Say five sentences where you have "me" at the end, okay?

"To me", "for me", or something like that, or in the...

Just in the object position.

All right, let's get back.

Number six, "Would you like to go out with Jack and I?"

So we're looking at this part here.

"Would you like to go out with Jack and me?"

Okay?

Again, we had "with", okay?

With me.

If you're not sure, just take out "Jack" and, right?

Take out those other people and just say...

Would it be right to say "with I"?

No.

"With me".

Or here, would it be right to say, "Me love pizza"?

No, not unless you're a cookie monster on Sesame Street, okay?

So since you're not...

So if you're not sure, take out, right, the

other person, and then see if that word "me"

makes sense, or whether you need "I", okay?

So here it would be like, "I love pizza", not "me".

All right?

Now, if you really want to master this once and for all, if you haven't already because

by watching this, it's always best to practice

a little bit more and be 100% sure so you

don't have to keep making this mistake again

and again, and you don't have to keep watching

17 other videos about the same subject.

Instead of that, you can use this opportunity,

master this point about "I" and "me", it's

a very basic point, you don't want to make

this kind of mistake in speech or in writing,

so go to our website, www.engvid.com, there you can do a quiz and really master it, and

write some sentences for us in the comments.

Write some sentences with "I", write some sentences with "me", okay?

And that way, you will master it once and for all.

I know you can do it, and each day, you're getting better and better in English.

So don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Thanks very much for watching.

Bye for now.