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ESL forum > Grammar and Linguistics > Me or I?    

Me or I?



Tanja80
Germany

Me or I?
 
Good morning everyone.

Maybe someone of you can help me with a grammatical problem I had for a while and I can �t find a helpful answer in any of my grammar books.

You say: My friends and I.

When do you use "I" or "me" in the end of a sentence?

Thanks in advance Hug

25 Jun 2009      





Lana.
Ireland

As far as I know these two are often interchangeable.
 
A lot of people would say "My friends and me went for fishing" or "My friends and I went for fishing".
 
It seems more logicval however to use My friends and I in the place of the Subject of the sentence ("My friends and I were very happy."), while My friends and me as the Object of the sentence ("They took my friends and me for fishing.")

25 Jun 2009     



johanne23232
Israel

As Lana said, My friends and I is the correct usage as subject (My friends and me went fishing is incorrect, although often used that way mistakenly).  My friends and me, can be used as object

25 Jun 2009     



MartaZ
Poland

I agree �My friends and I � is correct.

However, I think you can also hear �I and my friends �. How incorrect is that?

25 Jun 2009     



miss K.
Ukraine

�I and my friends � is incorrect because it �s impolite, that � making yourself more important than your friends and personally I think it �s tongue twisting to say �I and  my firends �.

25 Jun 2009     



LaSensei
Japan

Whether you use "I" or "me" is determined by how you would say the sentence if you were alone in the situation.

For example, you say, "I ate lunch," or "My friends and I ate lunch."  You would never say "Me ate lunch," so saying "my friends and me ate lunch" is wrong.



also, you use "__ and I"  in place of "we" and "__ and me" in place of "us".

For example, "This is between you and me"  =  "this is between us".  
["Mom and I ate lunch."  =  "We ate lunch."]

You cannot say "this is between you and I" because you wouldnt say "this is between we".


In a list, "I" is always placed at the end, "Bill, Kelly and I went to the movies" or "She and I are friends."


I hope this helps!

25 Jun 2009     



douglas
United States

Recently we had abig discussion over this topic in the forum (but I can �t find it at the moment)
 
Basically, what Sensei says is correct (use the subject pronoun when you are the subject and the object pronoun when you are the object).
 
But if I remember right there is a school of thought saying that in this case we can use the object pronoun (me) because it has become "common usage".  Which means it is grammatically wrong but it is used so much that it has become accepted as okay.
 
I stay with the grammatically correct: "My friends and I went..."

25 Jun 2009     



miss manal
Tunisia

i think that

25 Jun 2009     



miss manal
Tunisia

i think that (me) is used as an object
ex:he told me /he gave me/he ask me
it can not be used as a subject : we can not say (me is happy)
so you should use (i and my friends)

25 Jun 2009     



Lana.
Ireland

Douglas is right, common usage hence acceptable.

25 Jun 2009     



Apodo
Australia

Douglas said:
But if I remember right there is a school of thought saying that in this case we can use the object pronoun (me) because it has become "common usage".  Which means it is grammatically wrong but it is used so much that it has become accepted as okay.
 
 
Please. No! It is not correct and not acceptable. I know English changes over time and some things do become acceptable, but these are usually items of ambiguity, or where common sense prevails. The case in point is neither of these; it is just BAD English.

25 Jun 2009     

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