Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my channel, Sparkle
English, where I teach you how to improve your level of
English. This is the next lesson in my series on the
eight parts of speech. In today's lesson, I'm going to
talk all about pronouns and the different types of
pronouns. So first of all, there are eight parts of
speech in the English language: nouns, pronouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions,
and interjections. In today's lesson, we're going to talk
all about pronouns. So, let's get started. First of all,
what are pronouns? Pronouns are words that take the place
of nouns. We can use them when we don't know someone's name.
We can also use them to avoid repeating the nouns that they
refer to. For example, my grandma is 90, but she is
still very healthy. She is a pronoun that takes the place
of grandma. So instead of saying, my grandma is 90, but
my grandma is still very healthy, we can replace this
with she to not sound repetitive. Another example:
this tea is delicious. It tastes like peppermint. It is
a pronoun that replaces or takes the place of tea. So
let's talk about the main types of pronouns. First of
all, when people think of pronouns, they usually think
of personal pronouns, I, you, he, she, it, we, they. We have
possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours,
theirs. We have interrogative pronouns: who, what, which,
whose. Demonstrative pronouns: this that, these, those.
Relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, that. Indefinite
pronouns, such as anyone, someone, none, everything,
many, few, nobody, etc. Reflexive pronouns: myself,
yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves.
And reciprocal pronouns: each other, and one another. Let's
talk about each type of pronoun individually. First of
all, let's talk about personal pronouns. Personal pronouns
take the place of nouns and usually someone's name. We
have subject personal pronouns and object personal pronouns.
I, me, you, you, he, him, she, her, it, it, we, us, you, you,
they, them. For example, Chad married Bethany. This is Chad,
and this is Bethany. We can replace Chad with he, with the
personal pronoun he. He married Bethany. Chad is the
subject; he's the one doing the action. So we use a
subject pronoun. We don't say him married Bethany. Because
Chad is doing the action, so he is the subject. However, if
we wanted to replace Bethany, we would not replace Bethany
with she. We would replace Bethany with her. We have to
replace Bethany with an object pronoun, because Bethany is
not the subject of the sentence. However, if we
reversed it, Bethany married Chad, we could say she married
him. We also have possessive pronouns. Possessive pronouns
show possession. They take the place of possessive nouns. We
have possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns. My, mine,
your, yours, his, his, her, hers. Its, its, our, ours.
Your, yours. Their, theirs. For example, that is my phone.
That phone is mine. It belongs to me. Donna is our baby.
Donna is ours.
Next we have interrogative pronouns. Interrogative
pronouns take the place of people or things. We use them
to ask questions: which, what, who, whom, whoever, and
whichever. For example, who lives in that apartment?
What's inside the attic. Next we have reflexive pronouns.
Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject. We use
reflexive pronouns when the subject and the object are the
same. Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself,
ourselves, themselves, yourselves. For example. The
boy wanted to play by himself. Because the subject and the
object are the same, we have to use himself. If we said the
boy wanted to play by him, that could mean a boy wanted
to play beside another boy. But in this case, the boy
wants to play alone. So we use a reflexive pronoun. I saw
myself in the mirror. Again, the subject and the object are
the same, so we have to use a reflexive pronoun. Next, we
have relative pronouns. Relative pronouns introduced
relative clauses. Now, some of these pronouns can also be a
different type of pronoun, but it's a relative pronoun if it
introduces a relative clause. For example, that, who, whom,
whose, which, whoever, whomever, whichever. For
example, the boy, who lives next door, lost his bicycle
last week. We enclose this with commas because who lives
next door is extra information. The boy lost his
bicycle last week is really the main sentence. Who
introduces the relative clause who lives next door, and it's
extra information. Another example, people that exercise
frequently are generally quite healthy. In this example, that
is a relative pronoun, introducing the relative
clause "exercise frequently." And we do not use commas here
because this is essential information to the sentence.
If we say people are generally quite healthy, even though
that's a complete sentence, it is necessary to use this
relative clause because we are saying that people that
exercise frequently are healthy, not everyone. Next,
we have demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative
pronouns take the place of things: this, that, these,
those. This we use for something that is close to us
or something that we can touch, and that is for
something that is further away. These is the plural form
of this, and those is the plural form of that. For
example, that is the painting I love. That refers to a
painting over there. Come look at this. Those are my shoes.
Next, we have indefinite pronouns, and there are many
indefinite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns take the
place of unspecified nouns. One, other, some, none,
everybody, anybody, no one, nobody, for example. Is
anybody at your house? This is an indefinite pronoun because
we don't know who is at the house or if anyone is at the
house. No one wants to come with me. I hear something
moving outside. Again, we don't know what is moving
outside, so it's indefinite.
And finally, we have reciprocal pronouns. There are
only two reciprocal pronouns: each other and one another.
Reciprocal pronouns are used when two or more subjects are
acting in the same way towards the other. We use each other
for two people and we use one another, usually for more than
two people. For example, my parents love each other. So
that means my mom loves my dad, and my dad loves my mom.
The teachers congratulated one another on finishing another
school year. Here, we have multiple teachers and they are
congratulating one another. Okay, so this is just an
overview of the main types of pronouns. I know this is a lot
of information. I will be doing more detailed videos on
each type of pronoun. Let me know in the comments section
if you have any questions, or what type of pronoun you would
like me to talk about in more detail. Thank you for
watching. Make sure to check out my full series on the
eight parts of speech, and I will see you in my next
lesson!