Personal pronouns are an important part of the sentence since they refer to the subjects without the need to name them. Their use avoids redundancy in sentences without sacrificing coherence in speech, so they are a very useful element for writing that children should know. Mastering personal pronouns and learning to identify them will not only help them to write without so many repetitions but also to better understand the texts that use them. You can teach your child as they become able to read English properly, you can teach your child if he is more than 6-7 years old. 

To help you in the task of familiarizing children with personal pronouns, we explain what they are, what their main classification is, what functions they perform, and we offer you some examples that may be useful for children to understand them.

What exactly are personal pronouns?

Personal pronouns are a grammatical device that allows you to designate the participants of a speech, whether they are people, animals, or objects. Its main function is to refer to these elements without having to name them, designating a grammatical person, their number, and sometimes their gender.

It is worth noting that by themselves, personal pronouns do not have a specific meaning, but it varies depending on the situation and context. The choice of one type or another of pronouns is determined by the function that the element it replaces plays in the sentence.

The main types of personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are mainly classified into two categories: stressed and unstressed personal pronouns.

1. Tonic personal pronouns

The personal pronoun tonics are those that have a prosodic accent, words that are pronounced with more emphasis regardless of with or tittle. In general, stressed forms can play the role of subject, attribute or preposition term and can appear in different parts of the sentence, either isolated, without a verb, or after a preposition.

This type of personal pronoun has a gender variation and must always agree in gender and number with the verb. Except for the third person singular, “it”, which is considered a neuter pronoun.

2. Unstressed personal pronouns

Unstressed personal pronouns do not have a prosodic accent, that is, they are not pronounced with greater emphasis. They are usually accompanied by a verb form, either before the verb in the case of clitic pronouns or after the verb in the case of proclitic pronouns.

Usually, when they appear after the verb, they join it to form a single word as in the case of “listen to me” or “ask”. They usually work as a non-propositional verb complement or are part of pronominal verbs.

Taking care of the grammatical person, personal pronouns can be classified into first-person pronouns, second-person pronouns, and third-person pronouns.

1. First-person pronouns

Refers to a single person or group. The pronouns that are part of this category are: “I”, “me”, “my”, “with me” in the singular and “we”, “us” and “us” in the plural.

2. Pronouns of the second person

Refers to the interlocutor. The pronouns that are included in this category are: “tú”, “tú”, “te”, “ti”, “with you”, “vos” in the singular and “yours”, “you”, “you” and ” os ”in the plural.

3. Third person pronouns

It refers to a third person, different from the speaker and the interlocutor. This category includes the pronouns: “he”, “it”, “him”, “se”, “yes”, “get”, “it”, “it”, “she”, “the” the case of the singular and “they”, “they”, “the”, “the”, “them”, “I know”, “yes” and “I get” in the plural.

The syntactic functions of personal pronouns

When substituting a noun or nominal group, personal pronouns can fulfill different functions within a sentence, which usually coincide with those of the element they substitute.

1. Subject

When personal pronouns serve as the subject of a sentence, they refer to the author of the action of the verb. They can also serve as an attribute with a copulative verb. In these cases, the personal pronoun agrees in number and person with the verb and, as a general rule, it is omitted since the conjugated form of the verb is enough to indicate who it is, as for example in the sentence “I can go tomorrow to the party ”the pronoun“ I ”is omitted,“ I can go to the party tomorrow ”.

Subject pronouns include: “I”, “you”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “you”, “we”, “us”, “you”, “you”, “they “,” They “and” you “.

Some examples are:

  • “He has gone to visit his mother.”
  • “We will go tomorrow afternoon.”
  • “They always look for the best option.”

2. Direct complement

Another function that personal pronouns can perform is that of a direct object, in which case they complement the action of the verb. Obviously, in these cases, the personal pronouns are accompanied by a verb and substitute for a noun.

Direct object pronouns include: “te”, “lo”, “la”, “nos”, “os”, “los” and “las”. Some examples of direct object pronouns are:

  • “Have you heard of it?”
  • “They are very fond of us.”
  • “They will change them when the summer season is over.”

3. Indirect complement

Personal pronouns can also function as an indirect object, designating the recipient of the action that the verb describes. In these cases, they are accompanied by a verb, whose indirect object will be.

Among the pronouns that function as an indirect object are: “me”, “te”, “le”, “nos”, “us”, and “les”. In the case of “le” and “les” it can become “se” to avoid cacophony. Here are some examples of personal pronouns performing the indirect object function:

  • “I had a knock on the door very early this morning.”
  • “I’m going to tell you a story.”
  • “Tell him I’m not going to school tomorrow.”

4. Prepositional use

Another function of personal pronouns is prepositional. In these cases, they are located after a preposition. It is worth noting that in the case of the prepositions “between” and “according to” the prepositional pronouns “me” and “you” are not used but the subject pronouns “I” and “you”, such as “Between you and me I don’t feel like going to school ”or“ According to you, I shouldn’t go to school ”.

Among the prepositional pronouns are: “me”, “you”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “you”, “it”, “yes”, “we”, “us”, “you ”,“ You ”,“ they ”,“ they ”and“ you ”. Here are some examples that may help you:

  • “Don’t go yet.”
  • “The gift is for her.”
  • “They will go with you to the park.”