The Building Blocks: Personal Pronouns

When you want to learn another languauge, you need to have some vocuabluary before you can start to make sentences. It's a bit like building a tower. Just as you need some basic foundation blocks before you can start building a tower, you have to begin with some basic foundation words to make a sentence.

The simplest type of sentences are made up of:

A Subject           +             A Verb                                                              

for example,

Me                     +             Talking

The sentence would be: I talk. As you can see very simple- but a sentence all the same.

To make these simple sentences in French, we need to know some verbs and some subjects. Verbs are doing words, and since there are billions of things you can do and we invent new things to do everyday, why don't we begin with subjects? These are called Personal Pronouns and are words used to distinguish people without specifically using their name. In English, we have:

I, you, we, he, she + they

French have the same simple

I (je),  he (il), she (elle) + we (nous)

however they also have some extra tricky words.

Instead of just one 'you' they have two! This may seem strange at first, but it is quite useful. The word tu is used when talking to one person only. For example, one would use it to say "Are you Louise?" . It is also not very formal and should  be used between friends or when talking to somebody younger then yourself.

The second word for 'you' is vous. This is the one to use when talking to someone you do not know or who is older and to be respected. It is also used when talking to a big bunch of people- as in "Hey did you guys meet Louise?"

Another different word they have in French is a cross between 'we', 'you' and 'one'. It is a personal pronoun that can be used to make a general statement. For example, it would replace the bolded word in English in the following sentences:

"You should wash your hands before eating"
The general kind of  'you' that really means anyone who reads this.

"One should always practise beforehand, if one wants to suceed"
This isn't used very often these days, and can sound a bit more formal than it would in French.

"We can always try again later"
This is often used instead of 'nous', particularly if it is a small group who are doing the same thing or agree on the same things.

And what is this word, you might be wondering? This little French word is on. As you have seen, there are a ot of different uses for one very small word!


The French language is also very tricky in that it has more than one word for 'they'. In French the words for they are elles and ils. The first, elles is used when talking about females. For example, "Those girls are fun to be around." The second, ils is used for all other sorts of groups: either males only, or a mixed group. For example, "My brothers are over there, they are all taller than me now." and "Look at those kids! What a good time they are having!"

And those are all the basic Personal Pronouns!

Let's go through them quickly one more time:

Singular Personal Pronouns (For talking about one person only)
Je (I),  tu (you), il (he), elle (she)  and on (this word behaves like a singular pronoun, even though it can be used to talk about more than one person)

Plural Personal Pronouns (For talking about groups of people)
Nous (we),  vous (you formal/you guys), ils (they {males only or mixed group}), elle (they {females only})

All these Personal Pronouns are the key ingredient to building a simple sentence. Even if you are not talking about a person, you will need to use these words if you want to discuss objects and ideas. Learn them now, and you will be very glad when you see how useful and important they are later on!