Reflexive Pronouns

Doing It By Yourself

When you were two, you probably went through a phase where you wanted to do everything yourself, even if you didn't have the ability to do it yet! You might have wanted to put on your own clothes or brush your own teeth, but you had to have parents to help you. Now that you're grown, you can do a lot of those things yourself, and when you do, you use reflexive pronouns!

In this lesson, we'll look at reflexive pronouns, when we use them, and some examples in context. You'll be surprised to see how many you naturally do in your day as you get ready for school or go to bed at night.

Reflexive Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. Imagine you were giving a report on Dr. Seuss, ''Dr. Seuss wrote lots of books, because Dr. Seuss loved to draw. Dr. Seuss also loved to write. Dr. Seuss created stories that captivated kids.'' That's a lot of ''Dr. Seuss's!'' To make it easier, we can use the pronoun, ''he'' to take its place.

Other common pronouns are:

• She
• I/me
• You
• It
• They

Reflexive pronouns are when the person who does an action is the same as the person who receives the action. Remember how we said, when you were little you tried to brush your own teeth but it was difficult. Now you can brush your own teeth, yourself. ''Yourself'' is a reflexive pronoun, since you are the person brushing and receiving the teeth brushing.

Examples of pronouns with their reflexive pronoun counterparts:

Reflexive pronouns have to be in agreement with the pronouns or nouns to which they are referring. We can't say, ''I will do it herself,'' or ''They will do it ourselves.'' Instead, we have to say, ''I will do it myself,'' or ''They will do it themselves.''

When to Use Reflexive Pronouns

We use reflexive pronouns as objects of the verb. They don't work as subjects of the sentence. We can't say, ''Myself saved a piece of cake.'' Instead we would say, ''I saved a piece of cake for myself.''

We can also use reflexive pronouns to emphasize who was doing the work. We could say, ''He tied his shoes all by himself,'' or ''I, myself, think it would be a good idea.'' In this case, the reflexive pronoun is working as an intensive pronoun. It amplifies the subject. ''The author herself wrote us back.''

Examples

Let' take a look at some reflexive pronouns in context, and analyze why they work for those sentences.

• When he was chopping the vegetables, he accidentally cut himself.
  He is the one who cut and received the cut, so ''himself'' is a reflexive pronoun.
• She poured herself a glass of water.
  She is the one who poured and received the water. ''Herself'' is the reflexive pronoun in this sentence.
• Can you finish the rest of the work yourselves?
  You are the one who will do the work and receive the work being done. ''Yourselves'' is a plural reflexive pronoun for ''you''.
• Read quietly to yourself.
  We bought ourselves a new game to play.