Esperanto personal pronouns identify participants by their role in the conversation: speaker, addressee, or third party. Their system is highly regular: add -n for the accusative and -a for a possessive form. The one structural exception learners must understand early is si, a third-person reflexive that cannot be the subject.
The core system
| Reference | Subject/basic | Accusative | Possessive |
|---|---|---|---|
| speaker | mi | min | mia |
| speaker + others | ni | nin | nia |
| addressee(s) | vi | vin | via |
| male person | li | lin | lia |
| female person | ŝi | ŝin | ŝia |
| thing, animal, contextual referent | ĝi | ĝin | ĝia |
| plural third parties | ili | ilin | ilia |
| unspecified person or people | oni | onin | onia |
| third-person subject again | si (not as subject) | sin | sia |
Onin and onia are regular and grammatical but comparatively rare; speakers often restructure a sentence instead. Si has a basic form, used for example after prepositions, but it cannot function as a subject because its meaning depends on another third-person subject in the same local structure.
Mi konas ŝin, sed ŝi ne konas min.
I know her, but she doesn't know me.
Ĉu vi vidis ilin ĉe la stacidomo? — Ne, mi ne rimarkis ilin.
Did you see them at the station? — No, I didn't notice them.
The pronoun forms do not distinguish a separate dative or genitive case. Prepositions express those roles: al mi (“to me”), kun ŝi (“with her”), de ili (“from/by them”).
Person and number
Mi is singular and includes only the current speaker. Ni includes the speaker plus at least one other person; context tells whether the addressee is included. Vi addresses one person or several without changing form. Li, ŝi, and ĝi are singular; ili is plural.
Ni renkontiĝos je la sesa; ĉu vi povos veni?
We'll meet at six; will you be able to come?
Ana kaj Marko jam alvenis. Ili atendas nin interne.
Ana and Marko have already arrived. They're waiting for us inside.
Predicative adjectives agree with the pronoun's actual number. This matters with vi, whose form itself does not reveal number:
Lina, ĉu vi estas preta?
Lina, are you ready?
Kolegoj, ĉu vi estas pretaj por komenci?
Colleagues, are you ready to begin?
English “you” behaves similarly in number, but Esperanto makes the singular/plural interpretation visible on agreeing adjectives.
Subject and accusative forms
The basic form normally serves as subject. Add -n when the pronoun is a direct object.
Li vidis min, kaj mi ankaŭ vidis lin.
He saw me, and I saw him too.
Ŝi invitis nin, sed ni ne povis akcepti la inviton.
She invited us, but we couldn't accept the invitation.
Word order does not change those roles: Min vokis li still means “He called me,” with focus on min. English relies heavily on position; Esperanto -n preserves the grammatical relationship when the order changes.
After an ordinary preposition, do not add object -n merely because English calls the phrase an “object of a preposition.” Say kun mi, por ŝi, and pri ili. Directional constructions are a separate use of -n.
Possessive forms in -a
Adding -a turns a personal pronoun into a possessive determiner or independent possessive: mia, via, lia, ŝia, ĝia, nia, ilia, onia, sia. These forms behave like adjectives and agree with the thing possessed, not with the possessor.
Jen mia bileto, kaj jen miaj dokumentoj.
Here is my ticket, and here are my documents.
Ni ne trovas niajn ŝlosilojn.
We can't find our keys.
One speaker still says miaj dokumentoj because the documents are plural. Several speakers say nia bileto if there is one shared ticket. Add -n when the possessed phrase is accusative: miajn ŝlosilojn.
Possessives normally make a noun phrase definite, so Esperanto does not add la: mia libro, not la mia libro, when the noun is present. Independent la mia (“mine/the one belonging to me”) is a different structure.
Reflexive reference with si
When a third-person subject acts on itself or refers to its own possession, use sin or sia.
Karlo vidis sin en la spegulo.
Karlo saw himself in the mirror.
Karlo vidis lin en la spegulo.
Karlo saw him—another man—in the mirror.
Ana atendis ĉe la pordo. Marta prenis sian mantelon kaj salutis ŝian fratinon.
Ana was waiting at the door. Marta took her own coat and greeted Ana's sister.
The contrast is structural. Sian points back to the third-person subject Marta; ŝian explicitly points to some other female referent. Si is singular or plural according to its antecedent and has no gender of its own.
Three restrictions are foundational and were explicitly reaffirmed by the Akademio:
- Si/sia is third person only. First and second person repeat min/mian, nin/nian, or vin/vian.
- Si cannot be the subject or part of an ordinary subject.
- In a finite subordinate clause, si/sia refers to that clause's subject, not automatically to the main-clause subject.
Mi lavis min kaj prenis mian mantelon.
I washed myself and took my coat.
Marta diris, ke Ana prenis sian mantelon.
Marta said that Ana took her own coat. (The coat belongs to Ana.)
The complex cases deserve the dedicated Reflexive Pronoun Si page.
When a pronoun must be explicit
Esperanto finite verbs do not show person: venas can mean “am coming,” “are coming,” or “is coming” only when a subject supplies the reference. Therefore, ordinary clauses normally express the subject pronoun.
Mi venas nun, sed ili venos poste.
I'm coming now, but they'll come later.
Leaving out mi or ili would remove information that the verb ending does not carry. Subject omission is normal when the same subject is shared in coordination—Mi eniris kaj sidiĝis—and with second-person commands, where the addressee is recoverable: Venu ĉi tien! (“Come here!”).
Prenu seĝon kaj sidu apud ni.
Take a chair and sit beside us.
This is controlled recoverability, not general pro-drop like Spanish or Italian.
Normative status of ci and ri
The Fundamento includes ci as a singular second-person form, but it never became normal everyday Esperanto. Standard modern usage employs vi for both one and several addressees, regardless of intimacy or rank. Ci appears mainly in discussion, experimentation, or attempts to reproduce another language's familiar pronoun.
Ri is an attested gender-neutral singular third-person proposal. It remains non-official: in 2021 the Akademio explicitly declined to take a position on the advisability of such non-official pronouns for at least ten years. This is a status statement, not a claim that speakers never use ri. The dedicated page Ri and Gender-Neutral Reference can address current usage without presenting it as Fundamenta.
Common Mistakes
Omitting an ordinary subject pronoun
❌ Estas laca hodiaŭ.
Incorrect for ‘I am tired today’ — no subject identifies who is tired.
✅ Mi estas laca hodiaŭ.
I am tired today.
Forgetting accusative -n
❌ Ŝi invitis mi al la festo.
Incorrect — mi is the direct object.
✅ Ŝi invitis min al la festo.
She invited me to the party.
Using si as a subject
❌ Karlo kaj si laboras kune.
Incorrect — si cannot be part of the subject.
✅ Karlo kaj lia frato laboras kune.
Karlo and his brother work together.
Making the possessive agree with the possessor
❌ Ni prenis niaj bileton.
Incorrect — one possessed ticket requires singular accusative nian bileton.
✅ Ni prenis nian bileton.
We took our ticket.
Key Takeaways
- Basic pronouns identify person and number; -n forms the accusative and -a forms possessives.
- Possessive -j/-n agreement follows the possessed phrase, not the possessor.
- Si/sia refers locally to a third-person subject and cannot itself be an ordinary subject.
- Ordinary finite clauses normally need an explicit subject because verbs do not mark person.
- Vi is standard for singular and plural; ri remains non-official despite attested use.
Related Topics
- Mi and NiA1 — Use Esperanto first-person pronouns for the speaker alone or the speaker with others, including objects, possession, and inclusive or exclusive reference.
- Vi for Singular and PluralA1 — Use vi for one or several addressees, clarify number through context and agreement, and form vin and via regularly.
- Li and ŜiA2 — Use Esperanto's singular third-person pronouns for male and female people, with clear object, possessive, reflexive, and reference patterns.
- Accusative Personal PronounsA1 — Add -n to a personal pronoun when it is a direct object, while leaving pronouns after ordinary prepositions unmarked.
- Possessive Forms in -AA1 — Form Esperanto possessives by adding -a to personal pronouns and use them as determiner-like words before nouns.
- The Reflexive Pronoun SiA1 — Use si and sin when a third-person subject refers back to itself, and distinguish reflexive reference from ordinary third-person pronouns.