Welcome to 15mins.today the home of English Shadowing. I'm your host Gavin and this is InTense Episode 48. Well guys we are busy with pronouns, and we are actually going to be doing 2 today! And I'm doing these two together because, well they have a similar trait as I will explain shortly. Now these will be reflexive pronouns, which give information about pointing back to a personal pronoun near the beginning of a sentence and they always have self or selves in them.

So, “She bought herself a new car.” So, it refers back to her whoever she was. Ok, so, “Her friends enjoyed themselves at the party.” So, who enjoyed themselves? The friends, so it refers back to that other noun thefriends. Ok, and then we have intensive pronouns that also end with self or selves, but they just add emphasis to the noun or pronoun. So, “She herself picked out the car.” So it emphasizes who picked it out, so I will do these two together, because how do we recognize these two, reflexive and intensive pronouns, they end in either self or selves and they refer back to a previous pronoun or noun. Ok, so I think the easiest will be just to do some examples. Ok, so there's gonna be 2 in one we're going to be self selves. Great, let's get started!

Did Jane do it herself? Yes, she did it herself.

Did Jane do it herself? No, she did not do it herself.

Did Peter buy himself a new car? Yes, he bought himself a new car.

Did Peter buy himself a new car? No, he did not buy himself a new car.

Did you do the work yourself? Yes, I did the work myself.

Did you do the work yourself? No, I did not do the work myself.

Did John blame himself? Yes, he blamed himself.

Did John blame himself? No, he did not blame himself.

Did Peter and Andrew start the company themselves? Yes, they started the company themselves.

Did Peter and Andrew start the company themselves?

No, they did not start the company themselves.

Do you want to do it yourself? Yes, I want to do it myself.

Do you want to do it yourself? No, I do not want to do it myself.

Did they buy themselves a house? Yes, they bought themselves a house.

Did they buy themselves a house? No, they did not buy themselves a house.

Are you by yourself? Yes, I am by myself.

Are you by yourself? No, I am not by myself.

Well, there you go guys. Easy to recognize these two, they end with self or selves. And just on a side note, there’s that famous song All By Myself. Now you know it's either a reflexive pronoun or an intensive pronoun. Personally, I wouldn't bother about the difference as long as you know they are pronouns, that would be great. Ok, so keep practicing the questions and I'll catch you in the next one, bye!