This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2104.
What should you do when there is no grammar rule?
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglishcom.
Forward slash subscribe.
No grammar rules?
Is there ever a time when you can't possibly make a grammar mistake?
Today, find out the correct order when you say a pronoun along with a noun in English.
This Black Friday, stop piecing together random TikToks and YouTube videos that don't lead anywhere.
Join our 2026 English Mastery Bundle, a complete nine to 12 month curriculum designed for goal oriented learners like you.
You'll follow a clear, structured path from intermediate to high intermediate and even to advanced fluency, with every course flowing naturally into the next.
No gaps, no guesswork, no searching for extra resources.
Plus you'll get live speaking practice, community and teacher support.
It's a done for you plan.
Everything you need in one place, all unlocked with a single one-time investment.
This Black Friday only.
Build your English for the long term.
Start today.
Go to allersenglish.com slash Black Friday to save 50% off the normal price.
Expires at midnight on Friday. allersenglish.com slash B-L-A-C-K-F-R-I-D-A-Y. there, Aubrey.
What's shaking?
Not too much.
I have a question for you, Lindsay.
Okay, I'm ready.
We got a really good grammar question.
And one of these sounds right to me.
I'm curious if it's the same for you.
Which of these sounds right to you?
Okay, Adam and she went to the store, or she and Adam went to the store.
Definitely the second one she and Adam went to the store.
That is the one that sounds much more natural to me.
Right?
That's what I hear.
This is what I use.
Yeah, but And surprisingly, I did a little research for this episode.
There's no grammar rule.
Like both are technically correct as far as English grammar.
This is one of those weird things where I feel like, as far as what I hear on movies, hear on TV, there's one that sounds very right to me, in spite of the fact that there's no official grammar rule.
That's so weird.
All right.
Well, this is what we're going to get into today.
And today's episode was inspired by a really great grammar question, right?
This grammar question.
And we love, especially when it comes to grammar, to get your questions directly.
Don't we, Aubrey?
Yes, exactly.
Right.
And specific questions like this one that was sent in by Rosie with some, you know, specific sentences she's heard and mistakes she's heard where we can really dive in and get specifics.
All right.
I'm going to read the first part of the question.
Then maybe Aubrey, you could read the second part.
What do you think?
All right.
Sounds good.
All right.
So Rosie says, thank you for making this amazing podcast.
I'm currently working in the States and I've been listening to this podcast for four years.
Aubrey, that is incredible.
Four years.
We love it.
Thank you for listening.
I have to say everything told or taught in the podcast is practical, useful, and helpful.
My English proficiency has gone to another level each day, which helps me make deeper connections with my American friends.
Clearly our listener understands our values, our philosophy and is going for that sense of deep connection.
I love it.
And I love this to see that it's working, right?
That everything we're sharing is practical and useful, but is helping her make these deeper connections with friends in the States.
Like that's the goal.
It's working for you, Rosie.
Thank you for sending this in.
It makes me so happy.
It just warms our hearts to think about our listeners out there really truly making those connections and feeling a sense of a full life because you have people around you, right.
And it's because of that English, that focus on connection.
All right, Aubrey, let's go deeper.
Let's get into the questions.
From Rosie.
Yes.
So Rosie said, I have a grammar question for you.
Recently, I was sharing about the life of my coworker with my boyfriend, a native English speaker.
And when I said, oh, Adam and she went to blah, blah, blah somewhere.
My boyfriend corrected me and said it should be Adam and her or she and Adam went to.
For me, it doesn't sound right since her is not a subject.
I understand it'll be Adams and her plus an object like house.
Okay, so this is episode is a follow-up to a couple of episodes we've done very recently where we answered a lot of her questions there.
So we first want to share those.
If you missed them, definitely scroll up because with those two episodes and this one we answer all of the questions she had in this, in the questions she sent, which are all really good and are all pretty tricky English grammar.
I'm so excited for all the grammar episodes we have this fall.
It's really a key time for listeners to buckle down and look at grammar to focus on these.
So guys, go back to episode 2085, how English grammar and politeness go hand in hand.
That was the first one.
And then there was another one, Aubrey.
What was that?
Yes, 2093. her and I or her and me, your grammar question answered.
So yeah, scroll back.
In those episodes we shared grammar rules for pronoun order because it does matter for the first person pronouns like I and me.
To be polite, we put ourselves last, right?
Don't miss that episode.
And Rosie's friends are correct that many errors are accepted in spoken English, right?
These errors are more common in some regional dialects.
So they'll sound incorrect to some speakers, but not to others, right?
I love it.
I love it.
And what else, Aubrey?
What else do we need to know here before we get into it?
Well, whenever we teach a grammar point about native errors, we always share this information.
What is grammatically correct? and errors that are generally accepted and common in spoken English.
And we are going to keep doing that because that's our goal here.
We want you guys to know, yes, the correct grammar, but like, when does it matter?
Does it really matter?
Pro tips to avoid some of the traps.
So we've had a lot of these great grammar episodes lately.
If you are missing them, you're missing great stuff.
So be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode.
I love it.
Go ahead and hit that follow button, guys.
And so today we're going to answer about her boyfriend's correction.
Right, talk about that.
Right, this idea of she and adam instead of adam and she.
Let's get into it aubrey, where should we start?
Yeah, this is fascinating to me because one sounds so much more correct, right?
For me, it's definitely she and Adam.
It should be she and Adam, right?
But like I said, surprisingly, there's no set grammar rule about pronoun orders with nouns.
There are grammar rules when it's all just pronouns, which should come first.
I think we should definitely share about that in an upcoming episode.
So yeah, pit follow so you don't miss it.
But for this, when you have a person's name, like Adam...
And then a pronoun.
There's actually no set rule for which should come first, but one really sounds right.
Right, Lindsay?
And Aubrey, what are the sources that we consulted here?
Just to kind of back up what we're saying, where did we go to check this out?
Yes.
The AP Stylebook says a order doesn't matter when you're mixing pronouns with nouns.
And you're going to see, you know, I did quite a bit of research reading Grammar Girl, right?
She's sharing this as well.
I love her tips.
She's been on the podcast before, Mignon.
Yes.
A lot of these grammar experts do a lot of research.
They read all of the different sources and compile.
And every now and then this happens where it's like huh, this is more about what we're used to hearing.
And there isn't an actual set rule for this.
Very interesting.
Very interesting.
So let's go into some examples then, and see where we do have some freedom here, when it comes to this particular thing of adding a name and a pronoun.
Yeah.
And this is tricky because, you know, we say freedom because, oh, there's no specific rule.
But as far as what I hear in podcasts and film, what really sounds right to me and to you who grew up on the other side of the country, at least in the States, there's one that's going to sound right, I think, to most people.
And so that's to have the pronoun first.
So, for example, she and Adam went to the store.
That is instead of saying adam and she.
So again, just to make sure our listeners are clear, what we're saying here aubry, is that we could also grammatically say adam and she went to the store.
It just doesn't feel as natural to us.
Yeah, it's not what we're used to hearing or saying, and i'm curious actually if this is different in other english-speaking countries.
I would love for you guys to leave a comment on the youtube video.
What do you hear more often?
And if we have speakers from around the world, I would be fascinated to hear if it's the same of what we're used to hearing or something else.
That would be very cool.
What else?
What's another example?
So this works with every pronoun or not just she, right?
You and Julie ate dinner.
I wouldn't say Julie and you ate dinner.
It's grammatically correct because there's no official rule, but to have the pronoun first sounds correct to me.
Yeah.
Well, and then the last one, he and Matt are at the park.
Feels so much more correct.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I mean this is especially when, because with an irregular verb like to be, it will sound really strange to say Matt and he are at the park, because we're used to hearing he is, and we would want to change the verb.
And then it becomes confusing, like, ooh, is this a compound subject?
Oh, what should the verb be?
And so that's part of the reason that we always have the noun second, right?
He and Matt are at He and Matt.
I like that so much better.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what about object pronouns, Aubrey?
Right.
So if you guys did hear those recent episodes, you're clear on subject pronouns.
You know, he, she, object pronouns, him, her.
And this works the same, but let's look it out.
Which sounds right to you, Lindsay?
We met up with Mark and him, or we met up with him and Mark.
I don't know.
What do you think, Aubrey?
I hear both.
Both sound correct to me.
I feel like I hear both.
I say both.
So this is one thing where it's nice.
This is not something to stress about.
There is no set rule.
I think you're going to hear both, both on podcast TV and out in the wild just speaking to native speakers.
So maybe listen to what people around you are saying and match it, but they both sound right to me.
Yeah, I love that.
So in that case, we can kind of go with both.
I love it.
So good.
Okay, good.
And now what else?
Yeah.
Let's share a role play, right?
Definitely guys hit follow.
We will soon do another episode about when pronoun order does matter.
When there is no noun, when there's no name given, like here we're saying you know Matt and Mark, all these different names, when it's just like he, she and I, all right you, him and me.
There we've got some rules there about the order.
So that could be a whole other episode.
We'll share that very soon.
But did we share some of that in the previous episodes, Aubrey?
Was that something we covered in those other episodes?
The only thing we really talked about when we did pronoun order we were sharing that I and me should come last right.
Put everyone before yourself.
That is a pronoun order issue that's about politeness.
But there's a whole other set of rules that govern politeness, which comes first second, third or first person pronouns.
So we'll share about that soon with lots of examples so you can be really clear.
Because when it's groups, right?
When you have three different pronouns.
This is a common mistake in English.
To know what's the order.
Okay, guys, hit follow to get those.
Let's do our role play here.
So Aubrey, you were asking me about a party that I threw the night before.
So something that already happened in the past, correct?
Exactly, right?
Okay.
I'm so bummed I couldn't make it last night.
How did it go?
Kevin showed up, right?
Yes, he and Jenny both came.
It was fun to see them.
Very fun.
And Maria said she was going early to help set up.
Yeah.
And yeah, she and Lily got there at six and helped.
So nice of them.
Very nice.
So I was a little more restricted in what I had to say in this role play, because we need to have, we need to understand who the subject is right.
I need to have already asked about someone and named them in order for you to use a pronoun.
Yes, absolutely interesting right, because you can't just have a random she come out of nowhere and we don't know, like who was at the party and you're like he and jenny came.
I'd be like who's he?
What are you talking about?
Right, very awkward.
So i said kevin showed up, right.
So we both know we're talking about kevin, so you'll use the pronoun he he, right.
So i said yes, he and jenny both came, and so what we're saying here is we could say jenny and he both came.
Correct aubry, Yeah.
This sounds right to me.
He and Jenny both came, but grammatically both are correct.
Oh, we have choices.
We like that.
Okay.
What else?
And then I again clarified, I'm asking about Maria.
Oh, Maria said she was going to go early to help set up.
So I'm basically asking like, did she, did she go early and help?
Right.
And then I said, yeah, she and Lily.
So she is Maria.
She and Lily got there at six and helped.
So nice of them.
Exactly.
And again like ooh, no grammar rule of whether you say Lily and she or she and Lily, but this sounds correct to me.
She and Lily got there at six.
Ooh, no grammar rules.
I like it.
Maybe that's our title today.
Right?
For once.
It's really kind of strange, actually.
This almost makes it more tricky that you're like I'm trying to figure out what's the rule for this.
And there's all this conflicting information.
And some people are saying there is no rule.
That's almost more confusing.
Challenging, i think the the call to action here for our listeners is you know, i totally believe in just learning among native speakers.
Go live in an international house.
That's how i learned spanish in buenos aires is by living with international people speaking spanish.
But sometimes, if you go to them with grammar rule questions, they will give you the wrong information exactly.
So go somewhere else and double check what you're getting okay.
Yeah, and i think another big takeaway here is we love getting these questions and it's fun to make these episodes.
It's interesting to find out, but I think often enough the answer is, like you know, either there is no rule or natives use it both ways or, like even natives make mistakes with these.
I think it really is a testament for the fact that memorizing specific grammar rules, like you said, is not the best way to go about learning a language, right.
Instead of Speak it and learn the way people speak and don't be so stressed about making grammar mistakes.
Yeah, I mean, we'll tell you when we're covering a rule that you must get correct.
Right, Aubrey?
We'll flag that for you guys.
You know, there are certain things you know, we talk about present perfect, past perfect.
We want to get those right.
OK, grammar tenses.
But today is an example of where you can do either one and you can have a little more leeway and you should be focusing on connection, Aubrey.
Absolutely.
You guys have noticed that we always point out what sounds really right to us or to most native speakers.
That's those are the times where it's flagged like this way sounds really correct to us.
So the other way is going to sound wrong.
Right yes, and yeah, it's important to know, like what, what do natives say?
It's just so that we can build connections with confidence instead of stressing about mistakes.
Yeah, for sure, for sure, i love it.
So thank you to our listener for that amazing question and for being a long time listener four years.
We love that.
Guys send in your questions again.
You can put them in your review for this podcast, youtube or just email them to aubrey.
Good stuff yes, awesome.
Thanks, lindsay.
It's a fun grammar episode Yeah.
Talk soon, Aubrey.
Have a good one.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two-minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
