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What is the subject of a verb ?What is the subject of a verb ?

The person or thing that performs the verb in a sentence is called the subject.

For example:

Ana speaks Spanish. Who speaks Spanish ?Ana is the subject.

The book is on the table. What is on the table ?The book is the subject.

Have a go at this one:

The sun shone brightly in the sky.

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Subjects are often proper names, objects, animals, ……

Just as often, they are pronouns.

Pronouns are words which

stand in place of nouns.

When these pronouns replace the noun which is

the subject of the sentence, they are called

subject pronouns.

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Which pronouns would you Which pronouns would you use to replace these nouns ?use to replace these nouns ?

e.g. Paul likes swimming.

Paul swims every day.He

Ana and I speak Spanish.

Ana and Juan speak English.

Juan doesn’t like paella.

The dog loves paella.

We

They

He

It

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Infinitives tell us the action of the

verb without reference to any person or time.

To make the verbs refer to specific

people, we need to know a set

sequence of subject pronouns.

Each verb in each tense has 6 parts

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English Spanish

I

you

he

she

it

we

you

they

singular

plural

1st person

2nd person

3rd person

1st person

2nd person

3rd person

(sg)

(pl)

yo

tú

él

ella

él / ella

nosotros/nosotras

vosotros/vosotrasellos/ellas

The person speaking

The person spoken to

The person spoken about

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You’ll see that list ofsubject pronouns a lot

in the later presentationson the different tenses.

In English, we have to use the subject pronouns all the time.

If we didn’t use them, we wouldn’tknow who was doing the verb.

Think about it……

I speakYou speakHe/she/it speaksWe speakYou speakThey speak

With one exception, allthe forms are identical.

It’s the subject pronounsthat make it clear whothe subject of the verb is.

In Spanish, we very rarely use Subject Pronouns,

because all six parts of the verb are so different. We

don’t need the pronouns to tell us who the subject of

the verb is.

Here’s an example:

HablaréHablarásHablará

HablaremosHablaréisHablarán

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Now that you know all about verbs and

subject pronouns, you can look at the

presentations about the different tenses.

Have a go at the exercises to test

your understanding.

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