"The other day I heard an English saying: He that runs fast will not run long. Here the pronoun is he. I also read this in a news report: "Britain and her partners are helping to rebuild roads and bridges and buildings." Here the pronoun is her. But why we don't use the pronoun it?"
Song Yufei
Some of the first words students learn in English are pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they.
But pronouns can sometimes be difficult to use. Why do we call cars and boats 'she'? Why do we use 'they' to talk about one single person?
Look at this car I bought, isn't she gorgeous?
He who pays the piper calls the tune!
A student has just emailed us but they didn't give their name.
In today's Question and Answer of the Week, Rosie and Helen explain some tricky uses of pronouns.
If you have a question you'd like us to answer, just send it to questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk
