# Has anyone ever actually heard an ESL speaker say “me” in place of “I”? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 16, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831 "2019-10-16T05:13:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/21 "2019-10-16T21:02:03Z")
Yeah, I’m not sure offhand of specific examples of ESL people using ‘me’ instead of ‘I’, but I’ve heard and read plenty of native English speakers do so. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/22 "2019-10-16T21:40:56Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Yep, hear this all the time. “Me and Fred are going fishing tomorrow, wanna come?” I’ll do this sort of thing deliberately to sound more colloquial - you know, like the sort of guy who wouldn’t use words like “colloquial”. I mean, me and the guys get along better if I ain’t seen as too intellectual-like. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/23 "2019-10-16T23:42:21Z")
My example is not ESL so it probably doesn’t count, but I knew a woman who would say, for instance, “I’m going to the store now, me.” It was more like a verbal tic and she had a couple of others. Ending a sentence with “and so” [when there wasn’t any “and” or “so” to follow up] and I can’t think of the other one. She was from Michigan so I thought it might be a Michgan thing, but maybe it was just her. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/24 "2019-10-17T06:59:21Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Yes, but the trope occurs as a ham-handed device in entertainment media not to represent how people actually talk, but as a signal. For example, a German says to an American who speaks no German, “Everyone on my _Straße_ has a BMW,” because the thick German accent might not be enough for the audience to understand “This guy is _German_!” Exactly, but usually it’s much worse than even that. Typically it’s a Spanish-speaker who will rattle off a series of complex sentences with correctly used subordination and correctly back-shifted reported speech noun clauses–in order to advance the plot efficiently–but then who suddenly “forgets” the English word _yes_ and says, “Si” instead. The trope in the OP–the \*\*\*non-compound pronoun \*\*\*use (i.e., _me_ alone)–of _me_ for a nominative is something that English speaking children might do in very early language acquisition, which could explain how the trope started–as a way to infantilize non-native speakers. Apart from characters like the Cookie Monster, you don’t really hear it here–and by “here” I mean in California, where over 40% of the population speaks a language other than English at home, and a quarter of the population was born in another country. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/25 "2019-10-17T07:11:47Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Arguably, it ought to be “It am I”, but of course no one says it. “It am I” doesn’t make sense: the subject is “it”, not “I/me”. “Me” is the attributive complement. “I am it” makes sense; “it is me” makes sense; “it am I” is Yodaspeak. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/26 "2019-10-17T07:37:14Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “It am I” doesn’t make sense: the subject is “it”, not “I/me”. “Me” is the attributive complement. “I am it” makes sense; “it is me” makes sense; “it am I” is Yodaspeak. Clearly one must parse “it am I” = “I am it”, except with funky word order. “I” is unambiguously the subject. Not something someone would answer when you ask who’s at the door, but part of a line in a poem, why not? (Cf “woe am I”, “woe is me” - what Ophelia actually said…) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/27 "2019-10-17T09:12:44Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Clearly one must parse “it am I” = “I am it”, except with funky word order. So… you don’t know who Yoda is, I gather? Or, excuse me, know who Yoda is do you not? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/28 "2019-10-17T12:38:20Z")
When seven hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not. > [@](#): > > And forth she went, as jolly as a pie, > And bade the cookes that they should them hie, > So that men mighte dine, and that anon. > Up to her husband is this wife gone, > And knocked at his contour boldely. > “Qui est la?” quoth he. “Peter! it am I,” “I it am” seems to be another variation. I make no claim that anybody _today_ talks like that, and, evidently, neither did Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/29 "2019-10-17T12:47:38Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Exactly, but usually it’s much worse than even that. Typically it’s a Spanish-speaker who will rattle off a series of complex sentences with correctly used subordination and correctly back-shifted reported speech noun clauses–in order to advance the plot efficiently–but then who suddenly “forgets” the English word _yes_ and says, “Si” instead. English is my first language, but I speak pretty fluent Spanish, and passable German once I’ve warmed up a bit. I checked into the Holiday Inn in Duesseldorf a few years ago, and managed to do it all in German, and was feeling pretty damned good about myself because, as I indicated, it takes me a while to re-acquaint myself with the seldom-used language. My wife at the time asked me, on our way to the room, why I kept saying “si” during the conversation. Not “yes,” not “ja,” but “si.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831/30 "2019-10-17T13:00:20Z")
alternate text (why doesn’t Wiki have the olde fashioned orthography?) > [@](#): > > And forth she gooth as jolif as a pye, > And bad the cookes that they sholde hem hye, > So that men myghte dyne, and that anon. > Up to hir housbonde is this wyf ygon, > And knokketh at his countour boldely. > “Quy la?” quod he. “Peter! it am I,” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-actually-heard-an-esl-speaker-say-me-in-place-of-i/841831.md?page=1)