Subject Pronouns vs. Object Pronouns

Bill Situ

English and ESL Instructor

Pronouns refer to those words that can take the place of nouns. The following are subject pronouns, which as the name suggests, are used to indicate subjects of sentences:

     I (First-person singular)
     You (Second-person singular)
     He/she/it (Third-person singular)
     We (First-person plural)
     You (Second-person plural)
     They (Third-person plural)

Each of the above also has an object-pronoun equivalent:

     Me (First-person singular)
     You (Second-person singular)
     Him/her/it (Third-person singular)
     Us (First-person plural)
     You (Second-person plural)
     Them (Third-person plural)

Although this may be very self-explanatory, many students do misuse object pronouns as subject pronouns or vice versa, as in this example below:

     Johnny and me are finished our homework.

Me is a subject pronoun, yet it is incorrectly used as the subject here. The proper way to write this sentence is:

     Johnny and I are finished our homework.