Pronouns, part two: min, lin, nin

The whole system on one screen

Read across: the object adds -n, the possessive adds -a.

English I, me, my and she, her, her have to be learned one by one. Here the table is a pattern, not a list.

Subject pronouns

The verb never changes, so the pronoun does all the work of saying who:

• Mi estas homo. - I am a person.
• Vi parolas bone. - You speak well.
• Ili venis kun ni. - They came with us.

Three points the table cannot show, each with an example:

1234

1. 1mi
2. 2vi
3. 3vi
4. 4vi

The woman speaking says vi to her friend, to the older stranger and to the whole group: one you, with no polite or plural form to choose.

Esperanto does not normally drop a personal subject, as Spanish and Italian do:

• Ŝi estas bona. - She is good.

Estas bona on its own does not say who is good. (Two rarer pronouns exist: ci, an old intimate thou almost nobody uses, and ri, a newer gender-neutral he or she that some speakers use and others reject.)

The object: add -n

When the pronoun is the one being seen, heard or looked at, it takes the accusative -n, exactly as a noun does:

Because the ending marks the object, the words can move without changing who does what:

• Min vidas li. - He sees me. (stress on me)

In everyday speech the plain order is the usual one: subject, verb, object.

Oni: people in general

Oni is the vague subject English spreads across one, you, they and people:

• Oni diras, ke ŝi venos. - People say she will come.
• Oni ne povas scii. - You cannot know.

It is almost always the subject, and it never says who exactly. The full story, including how it replaces many English passives, is in impersonal sentences.