Teach Yourself: A Simple Guide to Reflexive Verbs

If you have ever talked to yourself, reminded yourself of something, and even given yourself a pat on the back for a job well done, then you have used reflexive verbs. These verbs allow you to describe actions directed to the subject of the sentence, and they are an important part of everyday English.

In this article we will explain the main rules regarding reflexive verbs, illustrated with a lot of examples and tips to help you use them correctly. We’ll also give you a list of reflexive verbs that are useful for daily conversation.

What are reflexive verbs?

To understand reflexive verbs, it’s important to first understand the basic parts of an English sentence. Let’s start by breaking down a simple sentence:

• Jane is making a cup of tea.
  subject verb object
  

You can see that the sentence has three parts – a subject, a verb and an object. The subject is the person or thing performing the action, the verb is the action and the object is affected by the action.

Now let’s add one word to our sentence:

• Jane is making herself a cup of tea.
  subject verb reflexive pronoun object
  

The word herself makes the sentence more specific. In the original sentence, we don’t know who Jane is making tea for. It could be anyone – a friend, her husband, her child, a colleague – we don’t know. In the second sentence, though, Jane is making the tea for herself.

By adding the reflexive pronoun herself to the sentence, we’ve changed the verb is making into a reflexive verb. A reflexive verb is a verb that affects the subject of the sentence.

Let’s see a few more examples:

• I cut myself peeling an orange.
• He taught himself how to swim.
• Go look at yourself in the mirror.
• They congratulated themselves on a job well done.

Reflexive pronouns

In contrast with other languages, English doesn’t have verbs that are always reflexive. A verb becomes reflexive when it includes a reflexive pronoun. (Read all about these in our guide to reflexive pronouns). When we attach a reflexive pronoun to a verb, the verb will have the same meaning, but the action will be directed toward the subject.

Take a look at the following examples to see how verbs become reflexive when attached to a reflexive pronoun like herself, himself or themselves:

• Helen dressed the baby in warm clothes.
• Helen dressed herself quickly.
• Tom hurt his toe.
• Tom hurt himself.
• Nick and Ilsa enjoyed the concert.
• Nick and Ilsa enjoyed themselves at the party.

The table below lists some of the reflexive pronouns that can form a reflexive verb. Notice that each reflexive pronoun corresponds to a personal pronoun, such as I, you, he and she. For each pronoun, we’ve also provided an example sentence so you can see how reflexive verbs look in context.

Another pronoun that you should learn is oneself. This pronoun is used when we are not talking about a specific person. It is often used in English to make general statements, as in the examples below:

• One should always be true to oneself.
• In difficult times, one must rely on oneself.
• It is important not to push oneself too hard.
• One can teach oneself many skills with patience and time.

When talking about the headword (the word that you find in the dictionary) for reflexive verbs, we always see the pronoun oneself.

Common reflexive verbs

We have said that many verbs can become reflexive, but nevertheless some are more frequent than others. Here is a list of the most common reflexive verbs in English.

• Enjoy oneself: They enjoyed themselves at the party.
• Teach oneself: He taught himself how to ride a bike.
• Hurt oneself: Be careful not to hurt yourself with that hammer.
• Introduce oneself: Sorry, I hadn’t introduced myself. I’m Claire.
• Prepare oneself: The actor prepared himself to go on stage.
• Blame oneself: Mark blamed himself for the accident.
• Express oneself: Sheila expresses herself by dancing.
• Behave oneself: Kids, behave yourselves at the dinner table!
• Apply oneself: You all will need to apply yourselves more if you want to pass the exam.
• Adapt oneself: He adapted himself to the new culture quickly.

Reflexive verbs and prepositions

Sometimes a preposition (words like to, of, for, and about) is part of the reflexive verb. This happens when the preposition complements the meaning of the verb. In this case we put the preposition after the verb but before the reflexive pronoun. Notice the position of the preposition in the following sentence:

I was talking to myself.
subject verb preposition reflexive pronoun

Here is a list of reflexive verbs that require a preposition:

• Talk to oneself: I always need to talk to myself when I’m packing my backpack.
• Look at oneself: She looked at herself in the dressing room mirror.
• Boast about oneself: He’s always boasting about himself.
• Think of oneself: I like to think of myself as a patient person.
• Laugh at oneself: He’s got a great sense of humor and can laugh at himself.
• Worry about oneself: She tends to worry about herself too much.
• Rely on oneself: She learned how to rely on herself from a young age.
• Care for oneself: We all need to learn how to care for ourselves.
• Speak about oneself: He’s very humble – he doesn’t like to talk about himself.
• Apologize to oneself: We need to apologize to ourselves sometimes.

Reciprocal verbs

One type of verb that is similar to reflexive verbs is reciprocal verbs. These are used when two or more subjects perform an action on each other. In many languages reflexive verbs use the same set of pronouns as reciprocal verbs. However, this doesn’t happen in English, and it’s a common mistake to mix these two types of verbs. Here’s a common example of a reciprocal verb:

Jim and Michael greeted each other.
subject 1 subject 2 verb reciprocal pronoun

In this sentence, Jim is greeting Michael, and Micael is greeting Jim. The reciprocal pronoun each other makes this clear.

To indicate that an action is mutual, we use the pronouns each other or one another, like we can see in these examples:

• They hugged each other after a long time apart.
• The two friends helped each other with their homework.
• We see one another every weekend.

Below is a list of common reciprocal verbs, with an example sentence for each one:

• Agree with: They agreed with one another on the best course of action.
• Argue with: Tim and Patrick often argue with each other.
• Congratulate: The opponents congratulated one another after the match.
• Disagree with: A husband and wife can often disagree with each other.
• Fight with: Two stray dogs were fighting with each other in the streets.
• Help: Good neighbors always help each other.
• Hug: They hugged each other in front of the train station.
• Know: We have known each other for years!
• Meet: They met each other at her sister’s wedding.
• Trust: This exercise works only if you really trust each other.

Wrapping up

To sum up, reflexive verbs are verbs that are directed back to the subject. A reflexive verb is always followed by a reflexive pronoun, such as myself or yourself. We have also seen that some reflexive verbs require a preposition – these include verbs like listen to yourself and talk to oneself. Finally, remember not to confuse reflexive verbs with reciprocal verbs, which use pronouns like each other and one another.

Now it’s time to pat yourself on the back for a job well done! Getting to the end of this article is a great start, but you know that in order to master reflexive verbs (as any other grammar topic) you’ll need lots of practice. Now is a great time to take the next step!