PRONOUNS

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns replace nouns:

►    Silvia is from Argentina. She’s a student. I met her in Madrid.

Subject pronouns

Subject pronouns are used mainly as subjects before verbs:

►    I live in Valencia

►    They are leaving tomorrow.

Object pronouns

Objective pronouns are used in most other cases:

-         after the verb to be:

►    Who is there? It’s me.

-         in comparisons:

►    She’s taller than him

-         after prepositions:

►    They got there before us

-         when they stand alone:

►    “Who came first?” – “Me!”

Reflexive pronouns

Myself                        ourselves

Yourself                     yourselves

Himself                      themselves

Herself

Itself

Reflexive pronouns are used:

-         When you do something to yourself:

►    He hurt himself when he fell over.

►    Look at yourself in the mirror.

NOTE: Many reflexive verbs do not have the idea of doing something to yourself:

►    Did you enjoy yourself?

►    Behave yourself!

-         for emphasis:

►    I made it myself

►    She told me the news herself

Possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns

Possessive adjectives agree with the owner, not the possession:

►    She went with her husband.

►    He is playing with his children.

Possessive pronouns are used without a following noun. No article is used with them:

►    This is my motorbike. Where’s yours?

NOTE: We do not say a my friend but a friend of mine:

►    My mother told me that my new French teacher is a friend of hers.

Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns

This and these are used with or without nouns to talk about things that are close to the speaker. They are usually used with nouns when talking about people:

►    This boy is looking for his parents.

►    This tastes delicious.

►    These shoes are too tight.

►    What do you think of these?

That and those are used with or without nouns to talk about things that are further away from the speaker. They are usually used with nouns when talking about people:

►    Who’s that man?

►    That smells terrible.

►    I love those shoes you’re wearing.

►    I’d rather have those than these.

They can also be used without nouns when you are identifying people:

►    These are my children, Tom and Jenny.

►    “Hello, is that Sam?” – “This is Alex.”