Writing Rules: Repeating subjects. It is quite common for language learners, especially Spanish natives, to repeat a subject as this is normal in their language. However, this can cause confusion in English. It is important to remember that you can use more than one subject in a sentence, but you can repeat the same subject twice. Let’s look at some examples.
REPEATING SUBJECTS
- In the sentence shown in the photo, Jenny and Emma, they are attending the event, we see that ‘they‘ is a pronoun that refers to Jenny and Emma.
- So, we are repeating the same subject.
- Jenny and Emma = they
- We can either say:
- Jenny and Emma are attending the event.
- They are attending the event.
COMMON MISTAKES
- The most common mistake is when we use a subject and the corresponding pronoun.
- My friend and I
weare meeting up after work. - My friend and I are meeting up after work.
- ‘We‘ is referring to ‘my friend and I‘ so we are repeating the same subject.
- My son,
heis starting a new job. - My son is starting a new job.
- ‘He‘ is referring to ‘my son‘ so again we are repeating the same subject.
- My friend and I
- Even though in these senteces, the pronoun is not next to the subject, it is still referring to it.
- The cake I made earlier,
itwasn’t very good. - The cake I made earlier wasn’t very good.
- ‘It‘ is referring to ‘the cake‘ so it repeats the same subject.
- The house they bought
itis quite big. - The house they bought is quite big.
- ‘It‘ refers to ‘the house‘ so again we are repeating the subject.
- The cake I made earlier,
Writing Rules
Now that you have seen Writing Rules: Repeating subjects, take a look at our other Writing Rules posts:
Writing Rules: English Essays – Exam Writing
Writing Rules: by vs till/until
