Teacher’s Guide: Personal pronoun 自己

自己 ‘oneself’ is a reflexive personal pronoun used when the object of a verb refers to the same person or thing as the subject. It is also used to add emphasis on a person, to indicate that an action is done by oneself, or that something belongs to or relates to a particular person or thing.

Common Errors

1. Pragmatic errors or inappropriate usage

When 自己 is used as the object in a pivotal sentence (a sentence where the object of one verb is also the subject of the next), learners sometimes incorrectly repeat the personal pronoun instead of using 自己 to avoid redundancy.

*她觉得她很漂亮
她觉得自己很漂亮。

*她覺得她很漂亮。
她覺得自己很漂亮。

L1 Interferences Errors

The learners may mistakenly assume that 自己 ‘by oneself’ and 一个人 ‘alone’ can be used interchangeably, since both are often translated as ‘alone’ in English. However, they express different meanings in Chinese: 自己 focuses on the manner of doing something (independently); 一个人 focuses on the number of people (no one else involved).

我想自己吃饭。

我想自己吃飯。

I want to eat alone.

(自己 emphasizes doing the action independently — e.g., ‘I want to eat by myself,’ perhaps to show capability or autonomy.)

我想一个人吃饭。

我想一個人吃飯。

I want to eat alone.

(一个人 emphasizes being without company — e.g., ‘I want to eat alone,’ meaning ‘I don’t want to eat with others’.)

Classroom activity: Me, myself and I..

Participants:

whole class.

Time required:

10 min.

Materials (optional):

Visual cards or projected images showing individuals, groups, and interactions.

Procedure:

The teacher shows an image and invites students to form a sentence using 自己 based on the situation.
Students can work individually or in pairs to discuss their ideas before sharing them with the class.
The teacher writes correct answers on the board, highlighting the position and function of 自己 in each sentence.

Examples of images and target sentences:

Situation: In class, several students do not know how to do an exercise, and even the teacher looks confused. Sentence: ________ 不知道怎么做这个练习。(Answer: 老师自己不知道怎么做这个练习。)
Situation: A girl is happily looking at herself in the mirror. Sentence: ________ 觉得 ________ 很漂亮。(Answer: 她觉得自己很漂亮。)
Situation: The younger brother eats with his mother’s help, but the elder brother eats by himself. Sentence: 妈妈帮弟弟吃饭，________ 吃饭。(Answer: 哥哥自己吃饭。)
Situation: In class, every student has a book with their name written on it. Sentence: 学生都有 ________ 书。(Answer: 学生都有自己的书。)