What are personal pronouns?

A noun is a word that is person, place or thing.
e.g. Brian, the car, the dog, Sunita, London
A pronoun is a word that can be used in place of a noun.
A personal pronoun is used in place of a noun that is a person or a thing.

Why use a personal pronoun?

Personal pronouns are useful because you don't have to repeat words.
They can be used to talk about something or someone that you have already talked about.
e.g. Elizabeth put the coat on because Elizabeth was cold.
This would be better written as:
Elizabeth put the coat on because she was cold.
The word she is a personal pronoun and means 'Elizabeth' in this sentence.
This makes the sentence shorter and more interesting, as you don't have to repeat 'Elizabeth'.

There are two types of personal pronouns:

• Subject pronouns are the 'who' or 'what' the sentence is about:
  I, you, he, she, it, we, they are all subject pronouns
• Object pronouns are the 'who' or what' acted upon:
  me, you, him, her, it, us, them are all object pronouns

e.g. Elizabeth put the coat on.
In this sentence 'Elizabeth' is the subject and 'the coat' is the object.
Elizabeth is doing the action (putting on) and the coat is the thing that is 'done to' (it is the thing that she puts on).
If you wanted to repeat this information later you could say:
She put it on.