PERSONAL PRONOUNS

1. Recognising the repetition of nouns

• What’s wrong with these sentences?

Jamie put the coat on because Jamie was cold.

The dog is a Labrador and the dog is thirsty.

Xavier ate the yellow snakes because he likes yellow snakes.
• In all these sentences, a noun is repeated. These would make much more sense as:

Jamie put the coat on because he was cold.

The dog is a Labrador and it is thirsty.

Xavier ate the yellow snakes because he likes them.
• These are probably what you thought was wrong in the sentences before: if you say
them out loud, it just seems weird to use the same noun twice in the same sentence!
2. Identifying personal pronouns
• Quick recap:

A noun is a word that is a person, place or thing. For example: Brian, the car, a pencil,
Uluru etc.
• A pronoun is a word that can be used instead of a noun.

Is the pen a blue pen?
Is that a blue pen?
• A personal pronoun is used instead of a noun that is a person or a thing. However, for
these to make sense you must have already mentioned the noun you’re replacing in
your paragraph. For example:

Personal pronouns for people = I, you, he, she, we, they

me, you, him, her, us, them
Personal pronouns for things = it, they, them

• Just like you don’t refer to other people as “it”, you don’t call a pencil “him”. It’s
important to use the right personal pronoun!
• Personal pronouns add to your writing because they save you from repeating your
subject (noun), so make your sentence shorter and more interesting.
3. Using the correct personal pronoun
• Insert the correct personal pronoun in these sentences.
a) Amy called earlier. Please return _____ call before 2pm. _____ says it’s important.
Amy called earlier. Please return her call before 2pm. She says it’s important.
Here, the personal pronoun ‘she’ refers to Amy. If you then had a sentence “Jill said
she might see you there!” the personal pronoun ‘she’ is now referring to Jill.
b) The parcel arrived at the post office; you can collect _____ now.
The parcel arrived at the post office; you can collect it now.
c) Phil and _____ are going to the movies. Do _____ want to come with _____?
Phil and I are going to the movies. Do you want to come with us?
4. Understanding singular versus plural pronouns
• Hopefully you remember the difference between singular and plural?

There was a seagull at the beach.

There were seagulls at the beach.

This second sentence has a plural noun because it’s talking about (referring to) a
group of things.
• You might have noticed in the last sentence there were different types of personal
pronouns. I was used: that’s a singular personal pronoun because it’s only referring to
one person. When 'us' was used, it was referring to a group of people; it’s a plural
personal pronoun (try saying that 10 times fast!)
• 'You' is a special personal pronoun because it can be used for either one person or a
group of people.

Do you like going fishing? (Could refer to multiple people, but most likely just one.)

Have any of you ever been to Disneyland? (A group of people)
• To know which ‘you’ is being used, you have to get the context from the rest of the
sentence/paragraph.
5. Knowing when to use ‘I’ and when to use ‘me’
• The personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘me’ often get used in the wrong place. You know which
one to use depending on whether the sentence is talking ‘about’ you (You are the
subject so you use ‘I’) or you’re talking about some other object (You are not the subject
so you use ‘me’)

Jack and I are going down to the shops.

Can you lend me your ruler?
• An easy way to know which one is right is to take the other person out of the sentence
and say it out loud.

Jack and I are going down to the shops.

If you take out “Jack”, you get “I am going down to the shops.”

It’s easy to hear/see that “Me am going down to the shops” isn’t right.
• Should ‘I’ or ‘me’ be used in these sentences?

_____ am 13 years old.
I am 13 years old.

Feel free to thank _____ for getting your ball back.
Feel free to thank me for getting your ball back.

Shane, Mikayla and _____ are going to the movies.
Shane, Mikayla and I are going to the movies.
6. Correcting personal pronouns in a paragraph
• When you’re writing a postcard there isn’t much space, so use personal pronouns to
save on space and make your sentences more interesting.
• (Attached worksheet)