First, second, third, whether it be "I", "you", or...
Hi. James from engVid.
Today I'd like to teach you about the first, second, and third pronouns.
Well, subject pronouns, to be exact.
And: What do we mean by first person, second person, and third person?
A lot of students have trouble with that, and that's why they use the pronouns incorrectly.
This is a very simple, straightforward lesson, and I hope you enjoy it.
Let's go to Mr. E. As you can see, he's standing on the podium. A "podium" is a box you stand
on once you want to... When you want to speak or when you want to... Or when someone has
got a position, like in the Olympics, they get first, second, and third position, so
they stand up on a podium. E is on the podium with all three medals. Well, there's a reason
for that, because you are important. And when we talk about subject pronouns, we're going
to see how the first, second, and third person works. Ready? Let's go to the board.
I mentioned Mr. E was wearing all the medals, and you're going to probably ask why. I'll
show you. When we talk about personal pronouns or subject pronouns, the speaker is important,
and who the speaker is speaking to is important, and this is how we can tell if something is
first, second, or third person.
Let's take a look at the first case. When I speak-or when E would speak-and I speak
with friends, it's called the first person, and this is where we use for the singular,
"I"; and for the plural, "we". Because I'm involved in the speaking, I am speaking with
a group of people, and/or I am personally speaking.
So we use "I" and "we" to say first person. Okay?
When we talk about the second person, it's when I speak to you or I am speaking to a
group of people. That means I, remember E is wearing the medals, I am directing my speech
to somebody that I'm speaking to right now. I'm talking to you right now. Now, you, if
you're watching at your house, I'm talking to you, that could be one person. But really,
we know I'm on the internet, so there's thousands of people watching, but I'm speaking to you
as well. So I am important and I am speaking to you, where I direct my speech, and that's
why we call it the second person. The second person in the conversation, you might say.
It could be one person or a group of people. And in this case, we use the same pronoun,
"you" and "you" to talk about you, I'm directing my speech directly to you. Good? All right.
Let's do the third person.
The third person is when I speak about something or someone.
You can think of it as they're not directly involved in the conversation. I could be talking
about "it", that's the third person. Or I could be talking about "he" or "she", as in
the third person. So this is when I speak about someone or something. For the singular,
we have "he", "she", and "it", because we do talk about things. For the plural, we say
"they". Cool? Great. That was a simple lesson. Let's go do a quiz on it. Are you ready?
[Snaps].
Ready for the quiz? Now, be very careful, this is a two-part quiz. First we're going
to fill in the blanks with a proper or appropriate pronoun. Okay? Then we're going to try to
see: Is that a first, second, or third pronoun? That'll be the second part we do.
Are you ready? Let's try this quick quiz.
"__________ am talking to them later."
What would that be?
Correct. "I am talking to them",
we know this because the "am" is there. So that means the subject is speaking.
Okay? The subject is speaking.
How about the next one?
"I saw them yesterday and __________ said they were going home today to see their families."
I'll give you a little bit of a hint, here.
We have "them", "they", and "their".
That's right. These are all plural words, so we can
make a safe guess that this would be
"they". In this case, I am talking about them; not
to them. Try to remember that when we do the second part, if I am talking about them, what
does that mean?
Number three:
"_________ are the type of person that makes friends easily."
Okay, well we can see it's one, "the" article
says one type of person, so we have a choice between
"I" and "you".
Well, I don't think I'm talking about me. I think I'm talking to you. I think you're the friendly type of
person, you watch engVid, you got to be a good guy or girl. So:
"You are the type of person that makes friends easily."
So this case, I'm actually speaking to you. Once again,
try to remember what case that would be; first, second, or third person.
You're going to be tested shortly.
And finally:
"__________ is a very nice sunny day today."
Well, do you know anyone named "Sunny", besides Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice, which is a
long time ago? I don't. No hippie babies. So I think it must be:
"It is a very nice sunny day today."
And "it" is a thing that we talk about. Right? Because "it", like a
chair or a pen, cannot have conversation at me... At me. [Laughs]. With me, so I cannot
direct my conversation.
Now let's go back to the second part of the quiz. Now we know the proper pronouns. If
I am actually speaking or talking, is this first, second, or third person?
Correct. It's the first person. When I'm speaking with my group or I am speaking, it's first person.
What about the other one?
"I saw them yesterday and they said they were going home to see their families."
In this case, it seems like I'm speaking to somebody about something.
If you remember, in the third person, we speak about things or people. This is a plural one,
but it still becomes the
third person, because they are not here, so I'm speaking to you
about them, and it is a plural or a group, so we must use "they".
What about number three?
"You are the type of person who makes friends easily."
That's right. I looked at you when I said it, I'm directing my speech at you, you're in the
room with me, so that would have to be the second person in the conversation. And remember:
"you" is used for both singular and plural, so that doesn't matter if I'm speaking to
you-that's right, John, in Acercromb-, Abercrombie, United States-or the rest of you throughout
the world. I'm still talking to you; you are my audience.
And number four:
"It is a very nice sunny day today."
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
Well, that's describing a thing. A sunny day is a thing, not a person; I can never speak to it. And
because it's not a girl or a boy, we use the word "it",
so that would make it, boys and girls,
the third person.
So we've done a quiz or a little test to check that you know the correct pronoun to use,
and how, looking for plurals or whether it's something, not a person, and then we actually
learned how to identify first, second, and third person. You've done a great job today.
You're first in my books. Ouch, I know, that hurt. It hurt me to say it. Okay, but
I want you to go to www, eng as in English, vid as in video.com (www.engvid.com)
where you can do the real quiz
-dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh-
and make sure you've mastered this. And once again,
thanks for being a subscriber. We love that you come to our channel.
And don't forget to subscribe.
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Thanks a lot. Bye.