Recognising First, Second, Third Person

First published: 2006-08-21

Last update: 2019-12-13

Grammatical Person

Many learners of English forget to add an 's' for third person singular in simple present. Some also add an 's' when they shouldn't. One of the causes seems to be that many people have difficulty to recognise third person. The following is to help avoiding errors with third person singular 's' by making it easier to recognise third person.

In languages one can see how humans are extremely egocentric. Everything is divided into three categories: First, Second and Third Person.

First person singular; the most important is:

am the centre of the universe.

Second person; the second most important is:

you

the one that

talk to.

Third person is:

all the rest,

everything that's left over.

Everything that's not

not

you

This reduces the problem of recognising third person singular to two simple questions.
Is it 'I'?	If it is 'I' it is first person.
Is it 'you'?	If it is 'you' it is second person.
If it is not 'I', not 'you', it is 'the rest',	It is third person.

Third person is for example:
"the dog",	The dog barks a lot.
"my mother",	My mother cooks very well.
"her father",	Her father takes good care of her.
"a bee",	A bee produces honey.
"a symbiotic fungus",	A symbiotic fungus helps a plant to grow.
"a chair",
"my ex-girlfriend's plan to visit Paris next month",	My ex-girlfriend's plan to visit Paris next month makes me sad.
"my neighbour",	My neighbour annoys me but also helps me a lot.
and, even "god"; some people write "God" with a capital letter, but it is third person.	God cares about everything.

Note:
It is important to realise that:	First person is literally "I",
	Second person is literally "you".

If I talk about myself using my name the subject of the sentence is not "I" not "you", it is "the rest", it's third person:

"I teach English."
"Ton van Hattum teaches English."

A picture showing this idea.