List of personal pronouns: I, me, you, he, him, . . .
| Personal pronouns | |||
| Gender | Subject pronoun | Object pronoun | Examples |
| male / female | I | me | I saw John yesterday. John saw me yesterday. |
| male / female (singular, plural) |
you | you | You like John. John likes you. |
| male | he | him | He loves Angela. Angela loves him. |
| female | she | her | She knows David. David knows her. |
| neuter (things, animals) | it | it | It costs a lot of money. Eric bought it. |
| male / female (plural) | we | us | We saw John. John saw us. |
| male / female (plural) | you | you | Do you both live here? I’ll show you both the garden. |
| male / female (plural) | they | them | They live together in Paris. We met them in Spain. |
It or he and she for animals?
We mainly use it when speaking about animals. If the animal is a pet, we often use he / him or she / her:
- The cat’s ill – I’m going to take her to the vet.
- Our dog sleeps outside in summer but he comes inside in winter.
Ships are sometimes referred to as she / her:
- The ship was designed in France, but she was built in Italy.
- RMS Titanic sank in April 1912. She was on her maiden voyage.
When we don’t know the person’s gender: he, he or she or they
English has several ways of using a pronoun to represent a person whose gender we do not know, e.g. a visitor, a traveller, a teacher, a driver, a guest, someone, etc. Take a look at these examples:
- There’s someone at the door – let him in, please.
- There’s someone at the door – let them in, please.
- When a guest arrives, they can go straight to their room.
- When a guest arrives, he or she can go straight to their room.
- When a guest arrives, he can go straight to his room.