Subject and object pronouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

All right, so grammarians, I want to talk to you about the difference between subject and object pronouns. But before we do that, let's start off with a little primer on what subjects and objects actually are—um, just generally, for our grammatical purposes.

So, in grammar, the subject is the part of the sentence or clause that does a thing. The subject does a thing. The object, on the other hand, is the thing that is acted on, has stuff done to it. So, the object has stuff done to it. The subject acts; the object is acted upon.

Let's give an example. In the sentence, "Reina wrote an email," the subject of the sentence, the doer of the thing, is Reina. Reina is the subject. The thing she is doing is writing an email. So, "Reina wrote an email." Email is the object of the verb "wrote." It is the object of the sentence.

Now, there are cases when a sentence doesn't have an object. For example, we could just say, "Reina wrote." It doesn't have an object; it's just "Reina" as the subject, and then there is no object. This is what we call intransitive usage. But you don't need to write that down or anything.

Now, understanding the relationship between "email" and "Reina" enables you to understand how subject and object pronouns are used. So, when we're subbing out these nouns for pronouns, we can figure out which ones we have to use because pronouns have different forms depending on whether or not they are subjects or objects.

So, "Reina" is a girl's name, and if we know that "Reina" is a girl, we can refer to her as either "she" or "her." These are two of the feminine pronouns. One of these is a subject, and one of them is an object. "She" is the subject form, and "her" is the object form. So, if we wanted to rewrite this sentence, speaking of Reina, we would say, "She wrote an email," not "Her wrote an email." You see? Because "her" is the object pronoun, and therefore is the thing that has—uh, the object pronoun has stuff done to it as opposed to the doer of things. "She" is the subject form; it's the doer.

For email, it's easy; this just becomes "it." In all cases, the subject form and the object form are the same. Let's do a couple more examples just to shore this up so you see what I mean.

I give her a present. Right now, "I" is the subject; "her" is the object. Subject, object. But what if we switched it? What would it look like then? Well, it wouldn't be "her give I a present," because since we're switching the subject and the object, we're going to be switching the pronouns that we use too. So, it would be "She gave me a present." Now, "she" is the subject form of "her," and "me" is the object form of "I." Get a little period in there.

Same thing with "they" and "he." So, "They showed him a guitar." Why not? So, "they" is the subject, and "him" is the object. And let's give it the old switcheroo: "He showed them a guitar."

So, now we do the switcheroo. "Him" becomes "he," so we go from the object form, which is "him," to the subject form, which is "he." And then "they," the subject form, becomes "them," the object form.

Now, when it comes to "you" and "it," you're in luck because the subject and object forms of these are the same. So, subject equals object with "you" and "it." So, I could say, "You give it a present," just as easily as I could say, "It gives you a present."

Oh, I didn't realize I changed this to the past tense. "She gives me a present." There we go, that's better. And that's the difference between a subject and an object pronoun. You can learn anything. Dave it out.