The main difference between first- and second-person pronouns is the person or people they refer to.
First-person pronouns represent the person who is speaking or writing (e.g., “We love helping people become stronger writers, and we hope you enjoy our blog”). They include “I,” “we,” “me,” “us,” “mine,” “ours,” “myself,” and “ourselves.”
Second-person pronouns represent the person you are speaking or writing to (“The more you practice writing, the better your writing will become”). They include “you,” “yours,” “yourself,” and “yourselves.”
First- and second-person pronouns can function as subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns.
There are fewer second-person pronouns than first-person pronouns for two reasons.
Only second-person reflexive pronouns have singular and plural forms. For example, “you” can mean one person or “you all.” (Although in spoken English, the contraction “y’all” for “you all” is a common plural for “you.”) “Yours” can also be plural or singular.
Second-person pronouns don’t have different subject and object cases. The second-person pronoun “you” can be a subject pronoun or an object pronoun.
QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker can help you use first- and second-person pronouns correctly.