All the words of the English language fall into one of these eight categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Likewise, there are several types of pronouns:

• personal: I, me,...
• possessive: mine, yours,...
• reflexive: myself, yourself,...
• demonstrative: this, that,...
• indefinite: some, any,...
• interrogative: who, what,...
• relative: which, that,...

Today we are going to see the first three types, which, like all pronouns, are used instead of nouns. Don’t get confused: personal pronouns do not only refer to persons. They are called like that because they refer to the three grammatical persons:

• First: person who speaks
• Second: person who is spoken to
• Third: a person or thing different from the first and second.

Image

Some personal pronouns can be the subject of a sentence, others can be direct or indirect objects. They can refer to the first, second or third person, and they can be plural or singular. Only the third person singular pronouns can be masculine (he/him), feminine (she/ her) and neuter (it).
You can find all these pronouns in the table below. Note also that I have included the possessive adjectives because their use is very close to that of the possessive pronouns.

Persons	Subject pronouns	Object pronouns	Possessive adjectives	Possessive pronouns	Reflexive pronouns
1st. p. sing	I	me	my	mine	myself
2nd p. sing.	you	you	your	yours	yourself
3rd p. sing. masc.	he	him	his	his	himself
3rd p. sing. fem.	she	her	her	hers	herself
3rd p. sing. neut.	it	it	its	its	itself
1st p. plural	we	us	our	ours	ourselves
2nd. p. plural	you	you	your	yours	yourselves
3rd p. plural	they	them	their	theirs	themselves

Let’s see how we can use these pronouns:
Subject and object pronouns:
If we had to change the nouns for pronouns in this sentence Paul loves Laura, which ones would you use? Taking into account that Paul is the subject and Laura is the direct object, the sentence would be He loves her. We cannot say *He loves she, as she is a subject pronoun, not an object pronoun. (See table above).
Object pronouns can also go after prepositions: Hurry up! They are waiting for us, not *They are waiting for we.
In comparative sentences we can use both subject and object pronouns after the words than or as. However, we should use the subject pronouns in more formal contexts, while object pronouns are used in more colloquial sentences.
He works harder than I. (formal) He works harder than me. (colloquial)
She is not as intelligent as he. (formal). She is not as intelligent as him. (colloquial)

Possessives:
Possessive adjectives accompany nouns, while possessive pronouns go alone.
That’s her car and this is mine.
        adjective                 pronoun
Possessives agree with the possessor and not with the thing possessed.
That’s my book. Those are my books.
Note that the possessive adjective remains the same with either singular or plural nouns.

Yours, mine, ours...
Image

Reflexive:
Reflexive pronouns are used in cases when the same person is the subject and the object of the sentence. Sarah is teaching herself to speak Spanish.
In this example Sarah both does and receives the action of the verb.
They can also be used as indirect objects: I bought myself a beautiful watch. And also as the object of a preposition: He is angry with himself for failing the exam.
Sometimes they are used for emphasis: I don’t think you need help with your homework. You can do it yourself.
Preceded by the preposition by, reflexive pronouns mean “alone”: He likes living by himself = He likes living alone.

Image by SweetOnVeg

Apart from these, which are widely used in the language today, there are also some personal and possessive pronouns which, though archaic, are still used in literary and religious contexts: thou (you), thee (you, object), thine (your, possessive before a word beginning with a vowel), thy (your, before consonant). They were originally used for the 2nd person singular in a familiar context, while you was more formal and used as a sign of respect, much like Spanish “usted” or French “vous”. However, this word drove out the use of thou, which today is only used in poetry and religion. Here’s an example of a well-known prayer:
Our Father, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Finally, let’s practise what we have learnt today with these exercises:

• Object pronouns
• Possessive adjectives or pronouns?
• Reflexive pronouns
• Cloze test

Personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns

All the words of the English language fall into one of these eight categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Likewise, there are several types of pronouns:

• personal: I, me,...
• possessive: mine, yours,...
• reflexive: myself, yourself,...
• demonstrative: this, that,...
• indefinite: some, any,...
• interrogative: who, what,...
• relative: which, that,...

Today we are going to see the first three types, which, like all pronouns, are used instead of nouns. Don’t get confused: personal pronouns do not only refer to persons. They are called like that because they refer to the three grammatical persons:

• First: person who speaks
• Second: person who is spoken to
• Third: a person or thing different from the first and second.

Image

Some personal pronouns can be the subject of a sentence, others can be direct or indirect objects. They can refer to the first, second or third person, and they can be plural or singular. Only the third person singular pronouns can be masculine (he/him), feminine (she/ her) and neuter (it).
You can find all these pronouns in the table below. Note also that I have included the possessive adjectives because their use is very close to that of the possessive pronouns.

Persons	Subject pronouns	Object pronouns	Possessive adjectives	Possessive pronouns	Reflexive pronouns
1st. p. sing	I	me	my	mine	myself
2nd p. sing.	you	you	your	yours	yourself
3rd p. sing. masc.	he	him	his	his	himself
3rd p. sing. fem.	she	her	her	hers	herself
3rd p. sing. neut.	it	it	its	its	itself
1st p. plural	we	us	our	ours	ourselves
2nd. p. plural	you	you	your	yours	yourselves
3rd p. plural	they	them	their	theirs	themselves

Let’s see how we can use these pronouns:
Subject and object pronouns:
If we had to change the nouns for pronouns in this sentence Paul loves Laura, which ones would you use? Taking into account that Paul is the subject and Laura is the direct object, the sentence would be He loves her. We cannot say *He loves she, as she is a subject pronoun, not an object pronoun. (See table above).
Object pronouns can also go after prepositions: Hurry up! They are waiting for us, not *They are waiting for we.
In comparative sentences we can use both subject and object pronouns after the words than or as. However, we should use the subject pronouns in more formal contexts, while object pronouns are used in more colloquial sentences.
He works harder than I. (formal) He works harder than me. (colloquial)
She is not as intelligent as he. (formal). She is not as intelligent as him. (colloquial)

Possessives:
Possessive adjectives accompany nouns, while possessive pronouns go alone.
That’s her car and this is mine.
        adjective                 pronoun
Possessives agree with the possessor and not with the thing possessed.
That’s my book. Those are my books.
Note that the possessive adjective remains the same with either singular or plural nouns.

Yours, mine, ours...
Image

Reflexive:
Reflexive pronouns are used in cases when the same person is the subject and the object of the sentence. Sarah is teaching herself to speak Spanish.
In this example Sarah both does and receives the action of the verb.
They can also be used as indirect objects: I bought myself a beautiful watch. And also as the object of a preposition: He is angry with himself for failing the exam.
Sometimes they are used for emphasis: I don’t think you need help with your homework. You can do it yourself.
Preceded by the preposition by, reflexive pronouns mean “alone”: He likes living by himself = He likes living alone.

Image by SweetOnVeg

Apart from these, which are widely used in the language today, there are also some personal and possessive pronouns which, though archaic, are still used in literary and religious contexts: thou (you), thee (you, object), thine (your, possessive before a word beginning with a vowel), thy (your, before consonant). They were originally used for the 2nd person singular in a familiar context, while you was more formal and used as a sign of respect, much like Spanish “usted” or French “vous”. However, this word drove out the use of thou, which today is only used in poetry and religion. Here’s an example of a well-known prayer:
Our Father, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Finally, let’s practise what we have learnt today with these exercises:

• Object pronouns
• Possessive adjectives or pronouns?
• Reflexive pronouns
• Cloze test

Meals and food

My students usually get confused with the words meal and food because they both translate as “comida” in Spanish. To help them understand the difference, I tell them that food is what you eat and the meals are breakfast, lunch, dinner... that is, the portions of food taken at a particular time. Thus, breakfast is eaten in the morning, and as its name suggests, it is the meal that breaks the “fast” or period in which you abstain from food (the night); lunch is eaten at midday and it is usually a light snack; and dinner is the main meal of the day and is eaten between six and eight at night. Some people use the word supper for the main meal of the day, but for others, supper is a light meal eaten shortly before going to bed.

Full English Breakfast
credits

Apart from these meals, you can also have a snack in between meals, and on Sunday an American custom that is catching in Britain is the brunch, which is a late breakfast or early lunch that is usually eaten in the late morning, making it perfect for those people that after a long night out want to stay in bed a little longer on a Sunday morning. The word brunch is a portmanteau of “breakfast” and “lunch”.

Brunch

Meals can consist of one, two or three courses (or sometimes more!). These are the parts of the meal that are served in different dishes and one after the other. A good meal can have an appetizer, a first course (soup or salad), a second course (meat or fish with vegetables and potatoes) and the third course, the dessert (sometimes called “pudding”), which is usually something sweet such as ice-cream, cake, trifle... Please, do not confuse dessert /dɪˈzɜːt/ with desert /ˈdɛzət/. Have a look at the pictures.

As we have seen in a previous post, you can “have” or “take” a meal, being the verb have more widely used in Britain, while the use of take in this context is more American.
There are quite a few adjectives that you can use with food. If you don’t like it you can say it is disgusting, yucky (slang) or unsavoury, but if you like it you can say that it is tasty or savoury, or, if you like it a lot, delicious, scrumptious, yummy (slang), or finger-licking good.

Let’s have a look now at this presentation about food and meals.

If you want to know a bit more about the traditional British dishes, go to this page.

Now you can do this exercise to see how many of the words we have seen today you can remember.

Well, all this writing about food has whetted my appetite. I’m going to the kitchen to see what I can tuck in. Fancy some scones? Enjoy your meal, or as the French say “Bon appétit!”.

Say or tell?

These two verbs have similar meanings, but they are not always used in the same way.
The main difference between them is the order of the complements after the verbs:
Say something to someone
          D.O.               I.O.
Tell someone something
          I.O.           D.O.
So, say is usually followed by the direct object, while tell needs an indirect object first.

Image

Say and tell are both used in direct and indirect speech, but we must point out a few things:

• In direct speech, say can introduce statements, exclamations and questions, tell can only introduce statements. Inversion of say and noun subject is possible when it follows the statement. Mary said: “What a beautiful morning!”. “What a beautiful morning!”, said Mary. (Notice the subject-verb inversion). However, there is no inversion with tell.
• In indirect speech, both say and tell can be used in statements, but not in questions. Other verbs such as ask, inquire, wonder or want to know can be used. “Where do you live?” He asked me where I lived.
• In reported commands, requests or advice, we can use tell, but say is not possible.

Image

Charlie said: “Go home, Snoopy”. Charlie told Snoopy to go home.
If you need more information about indirect or reported speech, have a look at this blog entry.

There are expressions in which these two verbs are not interchangeable. These are collocations and they must be learnt by heart:

SAY	TELL
yes	the truth
no	a lie
something	a joke
a prayer	the time
a word	a story
hello	a secret
goodbye	the difference

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Idioms with say and tell:

• Kiss and tell: to talk on television, in a newspaper etc. about a sexual relationship you have had with a famous person, especially in order to get a lot of money. The singer's ex-girlfriend was paid £20,000 by a tabloid newspaper to kiss and tell.

• Before you can say Jack Robinson: almost immediately. I’ll be there before you can say Jack Robinson.
• Never say never: anything can happen, all the options are possible. He says he doesn’t want to run for president, but never say never...
• Time will tell: something will become known in the course of time. Who knows what the future will bring? Only time will tell.

In the following song, Justin Bieber says he wants to start a relationship with a girl, but he is a bit reluctant because he doesn’t know if she is going to tell everybody about it. So, he asks her if she is going to kiss and tell.

Finally, here are some exercises to practise what we have learnt today:
Say or tell? Multiple choice.
Say, tell or ask?
Reporting commands