What is the difference between us and we as pronouns in a sentence?

Question

Is : Us and my grandmother went shopping correct use of a pronoun?

Answer 1

Is : Us and my grandmother went shopping correct use of a pronoun?

You can use this sentence structure test to see which pronoun should be used.

Start the sentence with just the pronoun 'us', leaving out "and my grandmother".

Us went shopping. (incorrect)

When you isolate the pronoun, you can easily see (or hear) that there is something wrong.

Remember that you need a subject pronoun to start a sentence.

Which personal pronouns can be the subject in a sentence?

I went We went

You went They went

He/She/It went

"Us" cannot be used as the subject of a sentence, because it is actually an object pronoun. Which of the pronouns in this list can be used, instead, to indicate a group in which you are a member? Anytime you are talking about two or more people-- and you are one of those people--as a subject, you can use "we".

Now, there is the unusual phrasing . The other tutors answering have a good way to solve this:

We and Grandma went shopping. (Grammatically correct, but awkward structure)

Grandma went shopping with us. (Grammatically correct, clearer meaning, more natural sounding)

By using the preposition "with", you avoid using two names for the subject and instead add "us" in object pronoun form.

Answer 2

The sentence mentioned above is grammatically incorrect. It should read:

We and my grandmother went shopping.

However, I would never say it that way. I would always prefer this structure:

We went shopping with my grandmother.

OR

My grandmother went shopping with us.

"We and xxx" just sounds odd in English.

Regarding grammatical terminology, as mentioned by Marcie before, "we" is a subject pronoun and "us" is a direct object pronoun. What that means is the following: when you use a pronoun instead of a name or noun, that is a subject pronoun. So, "we" could be Peter and I, i.e. "we" replaces the subject of the sentence. Conversely, in the sentence "My grandmother went shopping with us.", "My grandmother" is the subject (and could be replaced with the subject pronoun "she") and "us" is the object pronoun.

Answer 3

Us is a direct object and we is a subject pronoun.