Third-person words refer to someone or something being talked about, rather than the speaker (first person) or the person being addressed (second person). Common third-person pronouns include he, she, it, they, him, her, them, his, hers, its, their, theirs, himself, herself, itself and themselves; names and other nouns can also refer to people or things in the third person.
What third person means
Grammatical person is a way of describing how a word relates to the participants in a conversation. The speaker is first person, the listener is second person, and anyone or anything spoken about is third person. This distinction applies across English grammar, especially to pronouns and verb forms.
- First person: I, me, we, us refer to the speaker, alone or with others.
- Second person: you refers to the person or people being addressed.
- Third person: he, she, it, they and nouns such as Maya, the dog or the neighbors refer to people or things being discussed.
For example, in “I called you after Maya arrived,” I is first person, you is second person, and Maya is third person. The label describes the word’s role in the conversation, not how close or distant the person feels to the speaker. A person sitting beside you can still be referred to in the third person if you talk about them by name.
Third-person pronouns by form
Pronouns stand in for nouns or noun phrases. English third-person personal pronouns change form depending on whether they are the subject, object, or possessor. Here are the common forms:
- Subject: he, she, it, they — “She waved”; “They arrived.”
- Object: him, her, it, them — “I saw him”; “We invited them.”
- Possessive determiner: his, her, its, their — “Her coat is blue”; “The bird spread its wings.”
- Possessive pronoun: his, hers, theirs — “The blue coat is hers”; “Those seats are theirs.”
- Reflexive or intensive: himself, herself, itself, themselves — “He taught himself”; “The team congratulated themselves.”
The possessive forms can be easy to mix up. Her is used before a noun in “her book,” but hers stands alone in “the book is hers.” Its is possessive and has no apostrophe; it’s is a contraction of it is or it has. These forms are still third person because they refer to the person or thing being discussed.
Names and nouns can be third person too
Third person is not limited to pronouns. A person’s name, a job title, an animal, an object, or a group can function as a third-person subject or object. In “Jordan enjoys jazz,” Jordan is a third-person singular subject. In “The bicycles need repairs,” the bicycles is a third-person plural subject. The noun itself does not have to change into a special third-person form.
A useful test is to ask who or what the sentence is talking about. If the noun refers to someone or something other than the current speaker and addressee, it is normally third person. For example:
- “The teacher explained the rule.” The subject the teacher is third person.
- “My sister and I went home.” My sister is third person, while I is first person; the combined subject is first-person plural.
- “You and Sam can start now.” The combined subject is second person because it includes the person being addressed.
That last distinction matters: a phrase can contain a third-person name without the whole subject being third person. Person is determined by the subject as a whole and its relationship to the speaker and listener.
How third person affects verbs
In the present tense, English verbs usually add -s or -es with a third-person singular subject. Compare “I walk” and “you walk” with “he walks,” “the bus passes,” and “Mina watches.” With a plural subject, the verb generally has no ending: “They walk,” “the buses pass,” and “Mina and Lee watch.” This is often called subject–verb agreement.
The verb be has its own forms: “I am,” “you are,” “he is,” “they are.” The verb have also changes: “I have,” “you have,” but “she has.” Most past-tense verbs do not show a third-person difference: “I called,” “you called,” and “he called” use the same past form. The main exception is be: “I was,” “you were,” “she was,” and “they were.”
To check a sentence, identify its subject before choosing the verb. In “The box of old letters belongs in the attic,” the subject is box, not the nearby plural noun letters, so the singular verb belongs is correct. A phrase between the subject and verb does not change the subject’s person or number.
Singular they and gender
They can refer to more than one person, as in “The guests said they were ready.” It can also refer to one person. Singular they is used when a person’s gender is unknown or irrelevant (“Someone left their umbrella”), and many people use it as a personal pronoun. If a person tells you they use they, using that pronoun is a respectful way to refer to them.
Singular they normally takes the same verb forms as plural they: “They are ready,” not “they is ready”; “They have a ticket,” not “they has a ticket.” The meaning can be singular even though the verb form is traditionally plural. In a sentence such as “Alex said they were ready,” context makes clear that they refers to Alex. If the reference might be unclear, repeating the person’s name or recasting the sentence can help.
English also has gendered third-person pronouns: he and she. Use them when they accurately reflect the person being discussed, rather than assuming a pronoun from a name or appearance. It commonly refers to things, animals when their sex is unknown or not relevant, and sometimes babies in contexts where gender is not known. For a named pet or a person, people often use the pronouns that individual or the pet’s owner uses.
Third person compared with other grammatical forms
Some words refer to things but are not third-person personal pronouns. This, that, these and those are demonstratives. They can point to things being discussed—“That is expensive”—but they do not have the same subject and object forms as he/him or they/them. In many grammar explanations, they are treated as demonstrative pronouns or determiners rather than personal pronouns.
Likewise, who and which introduce questions or clauses, but their grammatical role depends on the sentence. In “Who called?” the identity is unknown; in “The person who called left a message,” who refers back to the person. The antecedent and the clause’s grammar help establish the reference. These words should not simply be memorized as a fixed list of third-person personal pronouns.
Point of view in writing is related but not identical to identifying a third-person word. A story told with he, she, or a character’s name is often called third-person narration. But a sentence can contain third-person words within a first-person narrative: “I watched Maya cross the street.” The narrator’s use of I makes the narration first person, even though Maya is a third-person reference.
Common mistakes and quick checks
Several frequent errors come from treating “third person” as a label for a word in isolation, rather than checking what it refers to and how it functions in the sentence. These checks can help:
- Do not call you third person just because it means people generally. In “You never know,” you is still grammatically second person.
- Do not assume every noun phrase is third person. “My friend and I” is first-person plural; “you and my friend” is second-person plural.
- Match verbs to the subject, not the nearest noun. “The list of names is on the desk” has singular list as its subject.
- Do not treat singular they as a mistake. It is widely used for an individual, and its verb agreement follows they: “they are.”
- Keep its and it’s separate. The first is possessive; the second means “it is” or “it has.”
A quick substitution can also reveal the person: replace the subject with I, you, or he/she/they and notice which version preserves the intended meaning. For “The new phone works,” substituting it gives “It works,” confirming third-person singular agreement. For “The new phones work,” substituting they gives “They work,” confirming plural agreement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is “you” a third-person word?
No. You is second person because it refers to the person or people being addressed. It remains second person even in general statements such as “You can learn a lot from practice.”
Is “they” always plural?
No. They can refer to multiple people or to one person. For an individual, it still takes the usual they verb forms: “They are,” “they have,” and “they work.”
Are names third person?
Usually, a name is third person when it refers to someone being talked about: “Priya is waiting.” But a subject that combines that name with the speaker or listener can have a different person, as in “Priya and I are waiting.”
What is third-person singular?
Third-person singular refers to one person or thing being discussed, such as he, she, it, or the train. In the simple present, most verbs add -s or -es: “The train arrives.”
Is “we” third person?
No. We is first-person plural because it includes the speaker. It may include the listener too, but its grammatical person remains first person.
Are “this” and “that” third-person pronouns?
They can point to people or things being discussed, but they are demonstratives, not personal pronouns like he or them. Their grammatical label and their role in a particular sentence are worth distinguishing.