http://www.engvid.com Confused about when to use 'me’, 'myself’, or 'I’? Is it „my friend and me” or „my friend and I”? Let me help you!
English native speakers often make grammatical mistakes with these words, and it can be a challenge to master for non-native speakers. People are very insecure about using the structure 'my friend and me’, because it is associated with being uneducated. Put an end to your confusion once and for all! Watch this lesson, and learn exactly how and when to use 'me’, 'myself’, and 'I’ in grammatically correct sentences. Then take the quiz here: http://www.engvid.com/confusing-words-me-myself-i/
TRANSCRIPT
Hello. I’m Jade. What we’re talking about today is an aspect of grammar. When is it okay to say somebody’s name and then followed by „and me” or „and I” or „and myself”? This is an aspect of grammar that native speakers get confused about. But more than just confused about, they avoid — completely avoid sentences where they might say your friend’s name „and me”. They completely avoid it because in British English, at least, it does have this association with being common language, not being posh language. And people avoid it because they don’t want to sound common. But actually, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it. Saying „and me” is really, really judged. But if you used it in a grammatically correct way, there’s absolutely nothing wrong can saying „and me”. In fact, sometimes people are wrong because they try to avoid it. So what you’ll learn in this lesson, if you’re a native speaker, you’ll not be confused anymore, but if you’re learning English as well, maybe you had a confusion about it, and you didn’t really understand why it’s different sometimes. So you’ll learn, and you won’t be confused anymore.
So let’s check what you already know. I’ve got some example sentences. Let’s see if they’re right. Let’s see if they’re wrong. „Me and Tom went skiing.” How does that one sound to you? Did you think that one’s right? This one is wrong. This one is wrong. We’re going to look at why later. But this one is wrong.
Second one. „Amjad and me played football.” How is this one? This one is wrong. Slightly better than the first because it’s considered more polite to put the other person before yourself. So it’s slightly better in that respect, but still wrong.
Next example. „My mum and I went for lunch.” What do you think about that one? Is that one okay? This one’s okay.
What about this one? „I and Janet study French.” How does that one feel? Well, actually, this one just sounds wrong. It should be swapped. If we say „Janet and I’, it’s okay, but no one would really say it like that.
And this example — more and more, people are saying „myself” because I think they’re a bit — I have to tell you something else. In British English, if you say „and I” all the time, it makes you sound quite grand and a little bit posh. And not everybody wants to use that language. Not everybody wants to feel like they’re using elegant language. And for them, they don’t like to say it. So it’s being replaced a lot with „myself”. Someone might say „my mum and myself”. So here’s an example. „Myself and Leo are going on holiday.” How is this? Well, with „myself”, you can put it first or you can put it second. You can change the position. It’s okay. My feeling about „myself” is also that it’s a little bit too formal just for everyday conversation. So I personally don’t use it. I prefer the other two ways of saying it, either the name „and I” or „me”, as we’ll get to in a minute.
So when we come back, we’re going to look at the actual grammar. Why can we say it „and I” sometimes, or why can we say „and me” sometimes?
Let’s take a look at the grammatical reason why there’s a difference and sometimes we say „and I”, and sometimes we say „and me”. Well, it all comes down to the position of the pronoun you’re talking about. So if the sentence is correct, if „I” is in the subject position — so I’m talking about grammar now. How do you know it’s in the subject position? Well, you find the verb, the main verb. Here’s the main verb. And if it’s before the main verb, then, it’s in the subject position. But if it’s after the main verb, it’s in the object position. So we have a name, and we have „I” — „I” the pronoun. These are both in the subject position. So this one’s correct. These are all correct here as examples, but we’ll go through them all one by one.
