Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are used to replace nouns or names we are familiar with. The personal pronouns include: “I,” “me,” “she,” “he,” “you,” “we,” “they,” “it,” etc. With pronouns, you can avoid repetition by not constantly mentioning names, especially when what you are referring to is obvious.

Imagine a conversation between two friends, Jack and Jill:

• Jack: Hey Jill, have you heard from Tom?
• Jill: No, I haven’t heard from him. The last time I did, he was in the Bahamas.

Here is another example, a conversation between a mother and her daughter:

• Mother: How was your exam?
• Daughter: It was great!

In this example, instead of responding that the exam was great, “exam” was replaced with “it.” To avoid repetition and because there is only one noun, the noun was changed to a personal pronoun.