Pronouns

Pronouns can often stand in place of people. Think of them almost as some really good professionals if you will. These little not nouns acting like it often look like this. Here are the ones for self.

I

Me

My

Mine

Myself

Here are the ones for you, the reader.

You

Your

Yours

Yourself

Then come the ones for someone else. Some of these refer to female names and some to males. Still others refer to when the gender is unspecified, and you don't want to assume. If that sounds a bit silly to you, these can also be used in place of other nouns that have no proper name. If you stop and really think about it, proper names are things like Billy, Bob, Sue, and maybe even me and you.

She

He

It

Hers

His

Its

Herself

Himself

Itself

Finally, here are the ones for more than one or two. I don't mean me and you. I mean both of us together that makes two or perhaps a couple more. Maybe I even mean the people way over there on the other side of the room. Perhaps they're simply somewhere else. Other words that do not denote gender and indeed have none are really nice when used with objects.

Our

Ours

We

They

Them

Their

Theirs

Ourselves

Themselves

Then we have the ones that stand in place of other nouns. These go nicely with it.

This

That

These

Those

If used properly they would sound a bit like this.

You are my good friend.

Notice how I had to use my there due to its' position by the noun. Instead of standing in place of someone else, another noun of person, it now goes along with it like a good pronoun should. Let's see another.

Me want snack.

Alright, calm down, you're starting to sound like Oscar the grouch. Perhaps I should call it a cookie monster while I'm at it, with its round little face so dear. That was not quite correct. Let's try that one again.

Theirs house order.

Yeah, that's not going as intended. Maybe once again:

I think you got it.

Much better, that sounds about right. That would be preferred because I could remove the stand in place of and say this:

Mother thinks son got smart.

Having seen the informal simple case, now let's look at something else. First though, let's think about your culture. How does it handle the curious case of pronouns? Do you hear them used in everyday speech? Perhaps your language uses slightly different rules than these. I can think of several that have assigned gender to everything regardless of its' name. Keeping this in mind will be especially useful when learning to speak and write your language. Once again though, it's probably best not to assume. Simply watch when and how things are used to learn the proper translation of the text. I would really hate to cause a disagreement in your speech.