The use of them / them / their for a singular reference, he goes on to say, ‘ has existed in informal speech for centuries (and) is becoming increasingly acceptable in more formal styles’. Michael Swan wrote in English Teaching Professional that ‘ oral media have done much to rehabilitate the grammar of speech, and this is influencing written norms’. This is the most complicated use of they and them, as in If someone phones, tell them I’m not here, and one which was considered incorrect not so long ago. If someone phones, tell them I’m not here. In other words, it usually represents the ‘doers’ of the action described by the verb, and usually refers back to two or more people or things that were mentioned earlier:

They is used to refer to the subject of a clause. However the fundamental difference between the two in grammatical terms, is that they is a subject pronoun, and them is an object pronoun. They and them are always used in place of plural nouns or noun groups in the third person. They and them are both pronouns, that is words which are used in place of nouns or noun groups. What follows is a full grammatical explanation of they and them (and all their contexts of use) followed by some teaching tips. In the case of your Brazilian learners, whose first language will be Portuguese, there is a bit of both things going on. The use of pronouns, especially they, can be problematic for learners whose native language has different forms for they (a masculine form, a feminine form, a neutral form) or for languages who do not always require a subject pronoun for a verb. I am currently teaching ESL to a group of Brazilian students and need to explain/express to them the difference between the use of the words 'them' and/or 'they' in any context use. Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship.

What pronoun is we