YOU AND ME VS. YOU AND I

You and I

Use “you and I” if it is the subject (Nominative Case). German question: Wer/Was? (1.Fall)

You and I are a great team. (Wer? – You and I)
Last week you and I had the same problem. (Wer? – you and I)

You and me

Use “you and me” if it is the object (Objective Case). German question: Wem? (3.Fall); Wen/Was? (4.Fall)

He gave it to you and me. (Wem? – you and me)
The problem affected you and me. (Wen/Was? – you and me)

Tricks:

Trick 1: Ask for the subject

Test your choice with the following questions:

You and me/I are a great team. –> Wer/Was ist ein great team?  – You and I – CORRECT

He gave it to you and me/I. –> Wer/Was gave it? – He – FALSE (CORRECT: Wem? – you and me)

Trick 2: Leave out “you and”

Omit “you and” and check if your sentence sounds correct.

You and me/I work hard. –> I work hard. – CORRECT (FALSE: Me work hard.)

She emailed the document to you and me/I. –> She emailed it to me. – CORRECT (FALSE: She emailed it to I.)

Here’s the tricky part:

Sounds simple? You might wonder why people find it so difficult to know when to use “you and I” versus “you and me”. Here are two explanations:

1. Native speaker mistake

Many native speakers make mistakes with “you and I/me”, especially when using slang. If you are a non-native speaker and often watch American movies or listen to a lot of English music, you might get used to some wrong structures. Lady Gaga’s song You and I, for instance, contains the following mistake:

(Something), something, something about my cool Nebraska guy
Yeah something about baby you and I – FALSE
(CORRECT: you and me – which doesn’t rhyme) ?

2. Grammar overlap

The personal pronouns in English are:

Nominative case:

I
you
he/she/it
we
you
they

Objective case:

me
you
him/her/it
us
you
them

While you stays the same, I changes to me. That’s a bit confusing.

Tipp:

Just use the two tricks from above, and you’ll know what to do. ?