Esperanto Personal Pronouns: mi, vi, li, ŝi and mia

Esperanto has eight personal pronouns, and two endings you already know do the rest: -n for the object and -a for the possessive. No irregular forms, no verb agreement, no polite you.

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.

Possessives: add -a

-a is the adjective ending, so mia is literally me-ish: belonging to me. That has one consequence. A possessive agrees with its noun like any adjective, taking -j for several and -n for the object:

1234567

1. 1mia avino
2. 2mia avo
3. 3mia patrino
4. 4mia patro
5. 5mia onklo
6. 6mi
7. 7mia frato

The girl at the bottom is speaking: everyone else in the tree is mia, my.

• Mia libro estas tie. - My book is there.
• Ĉu vi vidas miajn librojn? - Do you see my books?

The possessive agrees with the thing owned, not the owner. Miaj libroj has -j because there are several books; there is still only one of me. No la is needed either:

• Nia tago estis bona. - Our day was good.

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.

Si and sia: his own, her own

English he sees his book cannot tell you whose book it is. Esperanto can. In the third person, sia points back at the subject; lia, ŝia and ilia point at someone else.

Sia agrees like any possessive, and si has the object form sin:

• Ili vidas siajn librojn. - They see their own books.
• Li lavas sin. - He washes himself.

Two limits. It is third person only, because mi and vi are never ambiguous:

• Mi vidas mian libron. - I see my book.

And it never goes inside the subject:

• Lia libro estas bona. - His book is good. (never sia libro here)

The full treatment is in the reflexive.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say the table aloud row by row: mi, min, mia, then vi, vin, via.
2. Make three sentences about people you know with lin, ŝin and ilin.
3. Then read demonstratives, which take the same -j and -n.

See also

• The reflexive: si and sia vs li and lia
• The accusative -n
• Impersonal sentences with oni
• Nouns and adjectives