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Reflexive pronouns are words that refer back to the subject of the sentence to show that it is acting on itself in some way.

In other words, the same person or thing is both carrying out and receiving the action (e.g., The cat is cleaning itself).

Reflexive Pronoun Forms

Grammatical Person	Subject Pronouns	Reflexive Pronouns
First person singular	I	myself
Second person singular	you	yourself
Third person singular (masculine)	he	himself
Third person singular (feminine)	she	herself
Third person singular (neutral)	it	itself
First person plural	we	ourselves
Second person plural	you	yourselves
Third person plural	they	themselves

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• Reflexive Pronouns in Use

  • I poured myself a glass of juice.
    
    
  • Tie your laces before you trip yourself up.
    
    
  • He hurt himself playing football.
    
    
  • She bought herself a new dress.
    
    
  • My laptop keeps turning itself off.
    
    
  • We had the pool all to ourselves.
    
    
  • You can help yourselves to the snacks.
    
    
  • During the snowstorm, they entertained themselves with board games.

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  * Reflexive Pronouns

How Reflexive Pronouns Are Used in Sentences

A reflexive pronoun refers back to the subject to indicate that the same person or thing is both doing and receiving the action of a verb.

Consider this example:

• Tom bought himself some new shoes.

Here, the reflexive pronoun himself refers back to the subject, Tom. It implies that the person who bought the shoes is the same person who will use them.

Without the reflexive pronoun, it would read as ‘Tom bought Tom some new shoes.’, which is both repetitive and unclear. Using the pronoun himself avoids this redundancy and makes the sentence more concise.

Reflexive Pronouns as Objects

Reflexive pronouns always function as objects in a sentence; they are never used as subjects.

They can take the form of both direct and indirect objects.

• Direct Objects: The reflexive pronoun directly receives the action of the verb.
  
  
• Indirect Objects: The reflexive pronoun shows who benefits from or is affected by the action.

For example:

Role	Examples	Explanation
Direct Object	– The robot powered itself down.	The reflexive pronoun itself directly receives the action of the verb, showing the robot acted on itself.
Indirect Object	– Daniel taught himself Spanish.	The reflexive pronoun himself serves as an indirect object and shows that the subject (Daniel) both performs the action and benefits from it.

Reflexive Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions

Reflexive pronouns can also function as objects of prepositions.

A commonly used construction combines the preposition by with a reflexive pronoun to highlight that the subject does something entirely on their own.

Example:

• She travelled by herself across Europe.

The reflexive pronoun herself is the object of the preposition by, which serves to emphasise that she (the subject) completed the journey alone.

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In addition to by + reflexive constructions, it is quite common in everyday language for other prepositions to take reflexive pronouns as objects.

Below are a few examples:

• She cooked dinner for herself.
• Luke spent the night doing what he likes best – talking about himself.
• Talking to oneself is a sign of high intelligence, apparently.
• They keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone.

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Reflexive pronouns must match their antecedent (the subject) in gender, number, and grammatical person.

For instance, if the subject is singular, we use a singular reflexive pronoun; if it is plural, we use a plural one. This rule is known as pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Example:

• He hurt himself earlier playing football.

The reflexive pronoun himself matches the singular, masculine subject he. This agreement makes it clear that a single male person is both performing and receiving the unfortunate action.

Let’s take another example:

• They enjoyed themselves at the party.

The reflexive pronoun themselves corresponds to the plural subject they. The plural form shows that the action applies to everyone in the group.

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Getting pronoun-antecedent agreement right with reflexive pronouns is usually straightforward because the subject is right there in the sentence. But there are a couple of situations where it gets a bit trickier.

If there is more than one subject and the reflexive pronoun refers to all of the subjects, then we use a plural reflexive pronoun.

Example:

• The department manager and the employees need to familiarise themselves with the new guidelines.

In this sentence, even though ‘the department manager’ is singular, it is joined with ‘the employees’ to create a compound, plural subject. Since the action applies to the entire group, the plural reflexive pronoun themselves is used.

Another thing to note involves the pronoun you. In English, you works for both singular and plural subjects, but the reflexive pronoun changes depending on how many people we’re talking about.

If we’re talking to one person, we use yourself:

• You should be proud of yourself.

If we’re talking to more than one person, we use yourselves:

• You should be proud of yourselves.

Reflexive Pronouns vs. Emphatic Pronouns

As we have seen, words such as himself, herself, and themselves serve as reflexive pronouns to indicate that the subject both performs and receives an action.

The same words can also be used for emphasis and are known as emphatic pronouns. In this role, they highlight the subject and stress who did something, rather than referring back to it. This means emphatic pronouns work quite differently from reflexive pronouns.

Consider this example:

• The manager himself apologised to the customer and offered to refund the damaged item.

The emphatic pronoun himself is placed right after the subject (the manager) to emphasise that the subject handled the action personally. The manager didn’t hand the task to someone else. He took care of it himself.

This is quite different from reflexive pronouns, where the subject both performs and receives the action.

How to Recognise Reflexive Pronouns & Emphatic Pronouns

An easy way to check whether a pronoun ending in -self or -selves is reflexive or emphatic is to remove it from the sentence.

• If the sentence becomes incomplete, the pronoun is reflexive.
  
  
• If the sentence still makes sense, the pronoun is emphatic.

For instance:

Reflexive Pronoun:
❌ – We introduced ourselves.
✅ – We introduced ourselves.

Emphatic Pronoun:
✅ – The professor himself personally led the expedition.
✅ – The professor personally led the expedition.

In a nutshell, emphatic pronouns are optional additions to add emphasis to the subject, while reflexive pronouns are necessary to complete a sentence.

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Below are additional examples showing how reflexive and emphatic pronouns function in sentences.

Reflexive Pronouns vs. Emphatic Pronouns: Sentence Examples

Pronoun	Reflexive	Emphatic
myself	– I taught myself to play the guitar.	– I myself took charge of the project from start to finish.
yourself	– Believe in yourself.	– You yourself recommended that restaurant to us and it was awful!
himself	– He taught himself to code.	– Bob himself fixed the broken door.
herself	– Kara is preparing herself for her interview.	– She herself solved the mystery of the missing biscuits.
itself	– The computer restarted itself after freezing.	– Some people believe that life itself is a simulation.
ourselves	– We enjoyed ourselves at the party.	– We ourselves have to take responsibility.
yourselves	– Stay safe and take care of yourselves!	– You yourselves are the definition of teamwork.
themselves	– They found themselves lost in the jungle.	– The monks themselves make the renowned wine.

Remember: Reflexive pronouns show that the subject both does something and is affected by it, while emphatic pronouns simply put extra emphasis on the subject.

Common Mistakes Using Reflexive Pronouns

A common mistake is using reflexive pronouns where they don’t belong. This could be in place of subject pronouns, or as object pronouns when the subject and object aren’t the same.

A reflexive pronoun never replaces a subject. It refers back to it to show that the same person or thing is both performing and receiving the action.

Example:

❌ – Alex and myself are looking forward to you joining the team.
✅ – Alex and I are looking forward to you joining the team.

On the other hand, a reflexive pronoun can only work as an object when the subject and object are the same:

❌ – Can you please send the form to myself once you have completed it?
> The subject you does not match the reflexive pronoun myself.

✅ – The new teacher introduced herself to the students.
> The reflexive pronoun herself correctly refers back to the subject ‘the new teacher’, showing that the same person is both acting and receiving the action.

Practice Makes Perfect: Reflexive Pronouns

Exercise 1: Identify the Reflexive Pronoun

Identify the reflexive pronoun(s) in each sentence.

1. We had the pool all to ourselves.
   
   
2. I accidentally locked myself out this morning.
   
   
3. She treated herself to a takeaway after a long week.
   
   
4. We taught ourselves to cook during lockdown.
   
   
5. We found ourselves completely lost in the middle of nowhere.
   
   
6. She talks to herself when she’s concentrating.
   
   
7. The dog somehow got itself tangled in the Christmas lights.
   
   
8. I told myself I’d only have one biscuit.
   
   
9. He convinced himself it was a good idea. It wasn’t.
   
   
10. I promised myself I’d stop procrastinating. So far, I’ve spent thirty minutes reading about how to stop procrastinating.

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Exercise 1: Answers [Click]

1. ourselves
2. myself
3. herself
4. ourselves
5. ourselves
6. herself
7. itself
8. myself
9. himself
10. myself

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Exercise 2: Choose the Correct Reflexive Pronoun

Choose the correct reflexive pronoun to complete each sentence.

1. He taught ____________ to code. (himself / herself)
   
   
2. We let ____________ in with the spare key. (ourselves / themselves)
   
   
3. The gate swung shut by ____________. (himself / itself)
   
   
4. You should give ____________ more credit. (yourself / yourselves) [speaking to one person]
   
   
5. She found ____________ a quiet spot to read. (himself / herself)

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Exercise 2: Answers [Click]

1. himself
2. ourselves
3. itself
4. yourself
5. herself

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Exercise 3: Fill in the Correct Reflexive Pronoun

Complete each sentence with the correct reflexive pronoun.

1. I accidentally cut ____________ while chopping vegetables.
   
   
2. The children behaved ____________ at the restaurant.
   
   
3. He locked ____________ out of the house again.
   
   
4. We introduced ____________ to the new neighbours.
   
   
5. The cat got ____________ stuck in the tree, again!

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Exercise 3: Answers [Click]

1. myself
2. themselves
3. himself
4. ourselves
5. itself

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Exercise 4: Reflexive Pronoun or Emphatic Pronoun?

Determine whether the underlined word is a reflexive pronoun or an emphatic pronoun.

1. I taught myself to play the piano.
   
   
2. The manager himself apologised to the customer.
   
   
3. She made herself a cup of tea.
   
   
4. The chef himself took our order.
   
   
5. They organised the whole event themselves.

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Exercise 4: Answers [Click]

1. Reflexive pronoun
2. Emphatic pronoun
3. Reflexive pronoun
4. Emphatic pronoun
5. Emphatic pronoun

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Exercise 5: Spot and Correct the Error

Each sentence contains a mistake with reflexive pronouns. Find it and fix it.

1. Myself and Tom organised the whole event.
   
   
2. Can you send the report to myself when it’s ready?
   
   
3. Ben hurt hisself playing football.
   
   
4. The team and myself would like to thank you for your support.
   
   
5. Please direct any questions to either Sarah or myself.

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Exercise 5: Answers [Click]

1. Tom and I organised the whole event.
2. Can you send the report to me when it’s ready?
3. Ben hurt himself playing football.
4. The team and I would like to thank you for your support.
5. Please direct any questions to either Sarah or me.

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