Grammatical person facts for kids
In grammar, a person is a way we talk about who is involved in a conversation or action. It helps us know if someone is talking about themselves, talking to someone else, or talking about someone or something else. We use special words called pronouns to show who the "person" is. Pronouns are words like "I," "you," "he," or "they," and they make our sentences flow better.
The first person is when you talk about yourself. For example, "I am reading this," or "We are learning about grammar."
The second person is when you talk directly to someone else. For example, "You are a great student," or "Are you ready?"
The third person is when you talk about someone or something else. For example, "He likes to play," "She is happy," "It is a sunny day," or "They went to the park."
Contents
Understanding Grammatical Persons
Grammatical person helps us understand who is doing the action or who the sentence is about. Here's a simple way to look at it:
- First Person: The speaker (me, us)
- Second Person: The listener (you)
- Third Person: Someone or something else (him, her, it, them)
Pronouns and Their Persons
Pronouns are key to understanding grammatical person. They change depending on whether you're talking about one person (singular) or many people (plural).
| Pronoun | Person and Number | Gender (if any) |
|---|---|---|
| I | First person singular (just one person speaking) | - |
| We | First person plural (a group of people speaking, including yourself) | - |
| You | Second person singular or plural (talking directly to one person or many) | - |
| He | Third person masculine singular (talking about one boy or man) | masculine |
| She | Third person feminine singular (talking about one girl or woman) | feminine |
| It | Third person neutral singular (talking about one thing or animal without a specific gender) | - |
| They | Third person plural (talking about many people or things) | - |
How Pronouns Change
Pronouns can also change their form depending on how they are used in a sentence. For example, "I" is used as the subject (who does the action), but "me" is used as the object (who receives the action).
| Person | Singular (one) | Plural (many) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Object | Possessive | Subject | Object | Possessive | ||
| First | I | me | mine | we | us | ours | |
| Second | you | you | yours | you | you | yours | |
| Third | Female | she | her | hers | they | them | theirs |
| Male | he | him | his | ||||
| No gender | it | it | its | ||||
Sometimes, you might hear someone use a person's name in the second person, especially when talking to a baby. For example, instead of "You sit here," they might say "Charlie sits here." This is less common with older kids and adults.
Verbs and Grammatical Person
In English, verbs (action words) usually don't change much based on the grammatical person, except for a few cases. The verb "be" is a good example.
- I am
- You are
- He/She/It is
- We are
- They are
You can see that "be" changes to "am," "are," or "is" depending on the person and number. In many other languages, verbs change a lot more to match the subject's person and number.
See also
In Spanish: Persona gramatical para niños
