Top Tips Grammar: Personal pronouns

Main points

+You use personal pronouns to refer back to something or someone that has already been mentioned.
+You also use personal pronouns to refer to people and things directly.
+There are two sets of personal pronouns: subject pronouns and object pronouns.
+You can use ‘you’ and ‘they’ to refer to people in general.

 

a) When something or someone has already been mentioned, you refer to them again by using a pronoun.

- John took the book and opened it.
- He rang Mary and invited her to dinner.
- ‘Have you been to London?’ – ‘Yes, it was very crowded’.
- My father is fat – he weighs over fifteen stone.

In English, ‘he’, and ‘she’ normally refer to people, occasionally to animals, but very rarely to things.

 

b) You use a pronoun to refer directly to people or things that are present or are involved in the situation you are in.

- Where shall we meet, Sally?
- I do the washing; he does the cooking; we share the washing-up.
- Send us a card so we’ll know where you are.

 

c) There are two sets of personal pronouns, subject pronouns and object pronouns. You use subject pronouns as the subject of a verb.

I	He	It	They
You	She	We

Note that ‘you’ is used for the singular and plural form

- We are going there later.
- I don’t know what to do.

 

d) You use object pronouns as the direct or indirect object of a verb.

Me	Him	It	Them
You	Her	Us

Note that ‘you’ is used for the singular and plural form.

- The nurse washed me with cold water.
- The ball hit her in the face.
- John showed him the book.
- Can you give me some more cake?

Note that, in modern English, you use object pronouns rather than subject pronouns after the verb ‘be’.

- ‘Who is it?’ – ‘It’s me’.
- There was only John, Alex, and me in the room.

You also use object pronouns as the object of a preposition.

- We were all sitting in a cafe with him.
- Did you give it to them?

 

e) You can use ‘you’ and ‘they’ to talk about people in general.

- You have to drive on the other side of the road on the continent.
- They say she’s very clever.

 

f) You can use ‘it’ as an impersonal subject in general statements which refers to the time, the date, or the weather.

- ‘What time is it?’ ‘It’s half past three’.
- It is January 18th.
- It is rainy and cold.

You can also use ’it’ as the subject or object in general statements about the situation.

- It is too far to walk.
- I like it here. Can we stay a bit longer?

 

g) A singular pronoun usually refers back to a singular noun group, and a plural pronoun to a plural noun group. However, you can use plural pronouns to refer back to:

*indefinite pronouns, even though they are always followed by a singular verb.

- If anybody comes, tell them I’m not in.

*collective nouns, even when you have used a singular verb.

- His family was waiting in the next room, but they had not yet been informed.

 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Top Tips Grammar: Impersonal subject ‘it’

Main points

*You use impersonal ‘it’ as the subject of a sentence to introduce new information.
*You use ‘it’ to talk about the time or the date.
*You use ‘it’ to talk about the weather.
*You use ‘it’ to express opinions about places, situations, and events.
*‘It’ is often used with the passive of reporting verbs to express general beliefs and options.

 

a) ‘It’ is a pronoun. As a personal pronoun it refers back to something that has already been mentioned.

- They learn to speak English before they learn to read it.
- Maybe he changed his mind, but I doubt it.

You can also use ‘it’ as the subject of a sentences when it does not refer back to anything that has already been mentioned. This impersonal use of ‘it’ introduces new information, and is used particularly to talk about times, dates, the weather, and personal opinions.

 

b) You use impersonal ‘it’ with a form of ‘be’ to talk about the time or the date.

- It is nearly one o’clock.
- It’s the sixth of April today.

 

c) You use impersonal ‘it’ with verbs which refer to the weather:

anybody	everybody	nobody	somebody
anyone	everyone	no one	someone
anything	everything	nothing	something

- It’s still raining.
- It snowed steadily through the night.
- It was pouring with rain.

You can describe the weather by using ‘it’ followed by ‘be’ and an adjective with or without a noun.

- It’s a lovely day.
- It was very bright.

You can describe a change in the weather by using ‘it’ followed by ‘get’ and an adjectives.

- It was getting cold.
- It’s getting dark.

 

d) You use impersonal ‘it’, followed by a form of ‘be’ and adjective or noun group, to express your opinion about a place, a situation, or an event. The adjective or noun group can be followed by an adverbial or by an ‘-ing’ clause, a ‘to’- infinitive clause, or a ‘that’ – clause.

- It was terribly cold in the trucks.
- It’s fun working for him.
- It was a pleasure to be there.
- It’s strange that it hasn’t been noticed before.

 

e) You use ‘it’ followed by a verb such as ‘interest’, ‘please’, ‘surprise’, or ‘upset’ which indicates someone’s reaction to a fact, situation, or event. The verb is followed b a noun group, and a ‘that’- clause or a ‘to’- infinitive clause.

- It please me that he should want to talk about his work.
- It surprised him to realize that he hadn’t thought about them until now.

 

f) You can also use ‘it’ with the passive of a reporting verb and a ‘that’- clause when you want to suggest that an opinion or belief is shared by many people. This use is particularly common in news reports for example in newspapers, on the radio, or the television.

- It was said that he could speak their language.              
- Nowadays it is believed that the size is unimportant.
- It is thought that about a million puppies are born each year.

Note that the passive of reporting verbs can also be used without impersonal ‘it’ to express general opinions.

- The factories were said to be much worse.
- They are believed to be dangerous.

 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Top Tips Grammar: Demonstrative pronouns

Main points

*You use the demonstrative pronouns ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’ when you are pointing to physical objects or identifying people.
*You use ‘one’ or ‘ones’ instead of a noun that has been mentioned or is known.

 

a) You use the demonstratives pronouns ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’ when you are pointing to physical objects. ‘This’ and ‘these’ refer to things near you, ‘that’ and ‘those’ refer to things farther away.

- This is a list of rules.
- ‘I bought you these’, Linda held out a bag of grapes.
- That looks interesting.
- Those are mine.

You can also use ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’ as determiners in front of nouns.

- This book was a present from my mother.
- When did you buy that hat?

 

b) You use ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’ when you are identifying or introducing people, or asking who they are.

- Who’s this?
- These are my children, Susan and Ben.
- Was that Patrick on the phone?

 

c) You use ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’ to refer back to things that have already been mentioned.

- That was an interesting word you used just now.
- ‘Let’s go to the cinema’. – ‘That’s a good idea’.
- These are not easy questions to answer.

You also use ‘this’ and ‘these’ to refer forwards to things you are going to mention.

- This is what I want to say: it wasn’t my idea.
- This is the important point: you must never see her again.

 

d) You use ‘one’ or ‘ones’ instead of a non that has already been mentioned or is known in the situation, usually when you are adding information or contrasting two things of the same kind.

- My car is the blue one.
- Don’t you have one with buttons instead of a zip?
- Are the new curtains longer than the old ones?

You can use ‘which one’ or ‘which ones’ in questions.

- Which one do you prefer?
- Which ones were damaged?

You can say ‘this one’, ‘that one’, ‘these ones’, and ‘those ones’.

- I like this one better.
- We’ll have those ones, thank you.

You can use ¡each one’ or ‘one each’, but note that there is a difference in meaning, in the following examples, ‘each one’ means ‘each brother ’but ‘one each’ means ‘one for each child’.

- I’ve got three brothers and each one lives in a different country.
- I bought the children one each.

 

e) In formal English, people sometimes use ‘one’ o refer to people in general.

- One has to think of the practical side of things.
- One never knows what to say in such situations.

 

f) There are several other types of pronoun, which are dealt with in other units.

- See Possessive pronouns.
- See ‘Wh’- questions for information on ‘who’, whom’, ‘whose’, ‘which’ and ‘what’ as interrogative pronouns.
- See Defining relative clauses and Non-defining clauses for information on ‘that’, ‘which’, ‘who’, ‘whom’, and ‘whose’ as relative pronouns.

Remember that most determiners, except ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘every’, ‘no’, and the possessives, are also pronouns. For this topics check the following topics: All, most, no, one; Both, either, neither; Quantity 1, and Quantity 2.

 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Top Tips Grammar: Reflexive pronouns

Main points

+Indefinite pronouns refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they are.
+When an indefinite pronoun is the subject, it always takes a singular verb.
+You often use a plural pronoun to refer back to an indefinite pronoun.

 

a) The indefinite pronouns are:

singular	: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself
plural	: ourselves, yourselves, themselves

Note that, unlike ‘you’ and ‘your’, there are two forms for the second person: ‘yourself’ in the singular and ‘yourselves’ in the plural.

 

b) You use reflexive pronouns as the direct or indirect object of the verb when you want to say that the object is the same person or thing as the subject of the verb in the same clause.

For example, ‘Ron taught himself’ means that Ron did the teaching and was also the person who was taught, and ‘Ann poured herself a drink’ means that Ann did the pouring and was also the person that the drink was poured for.

- She stretched herself out on the sofa.
- The men formed themselves into a line.
- He should give himself more time.

Note that although the subject ‘you’ is omitted in imperatives, you can still use ‘yourself’ or ‘yourselves’.

- Here’s the money, go and buy yourself an ice cream.

 

c) Most transitive verbs can take a reflexive pronoun.

- I blame myself for not paying attention.
- He introduced himself to me.

Remember that verbs which describe actions that people normally do to themselves do not take reflexive pronouns in English, although they do in some other languages.

- I usually shave before breakfast.
- She washed very quickly and rushed downstairs.

 

d) You use a reflexive pronoun as the object of a preposition when the object of the preposition refers to the same person or thing as the subject of the verb in the same clause.

- I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.
- They are making fools of themselves.
- Tell me about yourself.

Note that you use personal pronouns, not reflexive pronouns, when referring to places and after ‘with’ meaning ‘accompanied by’.

- You should have your notes in front of you.
- He would have to bring Sam with him.

 

e) You use a reflexive pronoun after nouns or pronouns to emphasize that someone did something without any help from anyone else.

- She had printed the card herself.
- I’ll take it down to the police station myself.
- Did you make these yourself?

 

f) You use reflexive pronouns with ‘by’ to say:

*that someone does something without any help from other people

- ...when babies start eating their meals by themselves.
- She was certain she could manage by herself.

*that someone is alone

- He went off to sit by himself.
- I was there for about six months by myself.

You can also use ‘on my own’, ‘on your own’, and so on, to say that someone is alone or does something without any help.

- We were in the park on our own.
- They managed to reach the village on their own.

You can use ‘all’ for emphasis.

- Did you put those shelves up all by yourself?
- We can’t solve his problem all on our own.

Remember that ‘one another’ and ‘each other’ are not reflexive pronouns.

 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Top Tips Grammar: Indefinite pronouns

Main points

+Indefinite pronouns refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they are.
+When an indefinite pronoun is the subject, it always takes a singular verb.
+You often use a plural pronoun to refer back to an indefinite pronoun.

 

a) The indefinite pronouns are:

anybody	everybody	nobody	somebody
anyone	everyone	no one	someone
anything	everything	nothing	something

Note that ‘no one’ is written as two words, or sometimes with a hyphen: ‘no-one’.

 

b) You use indefinite pronoun when you want to refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they are. The pronouns ending in ‘-body’ and ‘-one’ refer to people, and those ending in ‘-thing’ refer to things.

- I was there for over an hour before anybody came.
- It had to be someone with a car.
- Jane said nothing for a moment.

 

c) When an indefinite pronoun is the subject, it always takes a singular verb, even when it refers to more than one person or thing.

- Everyone know that.
- Everything was fine.
- Is anybody there?

When you refer back to indefinite pronoun, you use plural pronouns or possessives, and a plural verb.

- Ask anyone. They’ll tell you.
- Has everyone eaten as much as they want?
- You can’t tell somebody why they’ve failed.

Remember that some speakers prefer to use singular pronouns. They prefer to say ‘You can’t tell somebody why he or she has failed’.

 

d) You can add apostrophe s(‘s) to indefinite pronouns that refer to people.

- She was given a room in someone’s studio.
- That was nobody’s business but mine.

Remember that you do not usually add apostrophe s(‘s) to indefinite pronouns that refer to things. You do not say ‘something’s value’, you say ‘the value of something’.

 

e) You use indefinite pronouns beginning with ‘some-‘ in:

*affirmative clauses

- Somebody shouted.
- I want to introduce you to someone.

*questions expecting the answer ‘yes’

- Would you like something to drink?
- Can you get someone to do it?

 

f) You use indefinite pronouns beginning with ‘any-‘:

*as the subject or object in statements

- Anyone knows that you need a license.
- You still haven’t told me anything.

You do not use them as the subject of a negative statement. You do not say ‘Anybody can’t come in’.

*in both affirmative and negative questions

-Does anybody agree with me?
- Won’t anyone help me?

 

g) If you use an indefinite pronoun beginning with ‘no-‘, you must not use another negative word in the same clause. You do not say ‘there wasn’t nothing’.

- There was nothing you could do.
- Nobody left, nobody went away.

 

h) You use the indefinite adverbs ‘anywhere’, ‘everywhere’, ‘nowhere’, and ‘somewhere’ to talk about place in a general way. ‘Nowhere’ makes a clause negative.

- I thought I’d seen you somewhere.
- No-one can find Howard or Alex anywhere.
- There was nowhere to hide.

 

i) You can use ‘else’ after indefinite pronouns and adverbs to refer to people, things, or places other than those that have been mentioned.

- Everyone else is downstairs.
- I don’t like it here. Let’s go somewhere else.

 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Top Tips Grammar: Possession

Main points

*Possessives and possessive pronouns are used to say that one person or ting belongs to another or is connected with another.
*You use apostrophe s(‘s) to say who something belongs to
*You use phrases with ‘of’ to say that one person or thing belongs to another or is connected with another.

 

a) You use possessives to say that a person or thing belong to another person or thing or is connected with them. The possessives are sometimes called ‘possessive adjectives’.

my	his	its	their
your	her	our

Note that ‘your’ is both singular and plural.

- I’d been waiting a long time to park my car.
- They took off their shoes.

Remember that the possessive ‘its’ is not spelled with an apostrophe. The form ‘it’s’ with an apostrophe is the short form for ‘it is’ or ‘it has’.

 

b) You put numbers and adjectives after the possessive and in front of the noun.

- Their two small children were playing outside.
- She got a bicycle on her sixth birthday.

 

c) You use a possessive pronoun when you want to refer to a person or thing and to say who that person or thing belongs to or is connected with. The possessive pronouns are:

mine	his	our
yours	hers	theirs

- Again note that ‘yours’ is both singular and plural.
- Is that coffee yours or mine?
- It was his fault, not theirs.

Remember that there is no possessive pronoun ‘its’.

 

d) You can also say who or what something belongs to or is connected with by using a noun with apostrophe s(‘s). For example, if Javier owns a motorbike, you can refer to it as ‘Javier’s motorbike’.

- Sylvia put her hand on John’s arm.
- I like the car’s design.

You add apostrophe s(‘s) to singular nouns and irregular plural nouns, usually referring to people rather than things.

- I wore a pair of my sister’s boots.
- Children’s birthday parties can be boring.

With plural nouns ending in ‘-s’ you only add the apostrophe (‘).

- It is not his parents’ problem.

You add apostrophe s(‘s) to people’s names, even when they end in ‘-s’.

- Could you give me Charles’s address?

Note that when you use two or more names linked by ‘and’, you put the apostrophe s(‘s) after the last name.

- They have bought Sue and Tim’s car.

 

e) When you want to refer to someone’s home, or to some common shops and laces of work, you can use apostrophe s(‘s) after a name or noun on its own.

- He’s round at David’s.
- He bought it at chemist’s.
- She must go to the doctor’s.

 

f) You can also use apostrophe s(‘s) with some expressions of time to identify something, or to say how much time is involved.

- Did you see the cartoon in yesterday’s newspaper?
- They have four weeks’ holiday per year.

 

g) You can use a prepositional phrase beginning with ‘of’ to say that one person or thing belongs to or is connected with another.

- She is the mother of the boy who lives next door.
- Ellen aimlessly turned the pages of her magazine.

After ‘of’ you can use a possessive pronoun, or a noun or name with apostrophe s(‘s).

- He was an old friend of mine.
- That word was a favourite of your father’s.
- She’s a friend of Stephen’s.

 

h) You can add ‘own’ after a possessive, or a noun or name with apostrophe s(‘s), for emphasis.

- My own view is that there are no serious problems.
- The professor’s own answer may be unacceptable.

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------
Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
---------------------------------------------

 

See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

No te olvides de compartir esto con tus amigos y compañeros, hagamos de este Blog una comunidad de difusión del Inglés como segundo idioma. Antes de irte deja tu comentario y haz clic en Me Gusta.

Advanced Vocabulary - Pronouns

Pronouns

ablative noun

linguistics the form of a noun, pronoun, or adjective that you use in some languages when you are talking about who something is done by, what something is done with, or where something comes from.

demonstrative adjective

linguistics demonstrative pronouns are the words ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’.

direct object noun

linguistics the noun or pronoun in a sentence that is affected by the action of a transitive verb. In the sentence ‘Harry was reading a book’, the noun phrase ‘a book’ is the direct object of the verb ‘was reading’..

the first person noun

linguistics the form of the pronoun or verb that you use about yourself, and about someone who is with you. The first person pronouns in English are ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘we’, and ‘us’..

genitive noun

linguistics a form of the noun or pronoun in the grammar of some languages, used to show possession In English, this is shown by adding ‘’s’ at the end of the word, for example ‘Sarah’s birthday’ .

impersonal pronoun noun

linguistics a pronoun such as ‘it’ in English that does not refer to a particular person or thing, for example ‘It’s all right’.

indefinite pronoun noun

linguistics a pronoun that does not refer to any particular person or thing, for example ‘anybody’, ‘everyone’, or ‘anything’.

indirect object noun

linguistics the person or thing in a sentence that is indirectly affected by the action of the verb because something is given to them or done for them. For example ‘me’ is the indirect object in ‘He gave me the book.’.

nominative noun

linguistics the form of a noun or pronoun when it is the subject of a verb.

personal pronoun noun

linguistics a pronoun such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘them’, or ‘it’ that refers to a specific person, thing, or group of people or things.

possessive pronoun noun

linguistics a pronoun such as ‘mine’, ‘theirs’, or ‘yours’ that shows who something belongs to.

pron. abbreviation

pronoun.

pronominal adjective

linguistics relating to a pronoun, or used as a pronoun.

pronominal noun

linguistics a word that acts as a pronoun.

pronoun noun

linguistics a word used instead of a noun for referring to a person or thing that has been mentioned earlier, for example ‘she’, ‘they’, ‘that’, and ‘yourself’.

relative pronoun noun

linguistics a pronoun such as ‘who’, ‘that’, or ‘which’ that introduces a relative clause in a sentence.

the second person noun

linguistics the pronoun or form of a verb that refers to the person you are talking to. In English the second person pronoun is ‘you’.

the third person noun

linguistics the set of pronouns and verb forms used for referring to someone or something that is not the speaker or the person being spoken to.

first second third person

linguistics the forms of pronouns or verbs that show who is being referred to. People use the first person (I) to refer to themselves, the second person (you) to refer to the person or people they are talking to, and the third person he she they to refer to anyone else.

total words = 19