Third Person: What It Is and How To Use It

Do you know what third person is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on third person, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!

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What is third person?

According to Grammarly, third person is a point of view or perspective that belongs to the people who are being talked about. The statements are not about the people who are being talked to, but the people that are being talked about. The third-person pronouns include he, him, her, hers, herself, it, them, their, theirs, its, his, himself, she, itself, they, and themselves.

As opposed to first person which comes with a personal perspective, third person points of view are external. Plural first person pronouns and singular first person pronouns are I, me, my, mine, myself, we, our, ourselves, and us. There are many different forms of third person including limited third-person, the possessive case, the objective case, the subjective case, an omniscient POV character, and more. Third-person writing and a third-person perspective is often used in academic writing or fiction writing versus a first person voice or second person voice.

Third Person is also a film from 2013 according to IMDb. This film was written and directed by writer-director Paul Haggis and stars Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, Olivia Wilde, Maria Bello, James Franco, and Kim Basinger.

Below are third person examples from famous quotes, from Your Dictionary:

  •  “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” – Michael J. Fox
  •  “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
  •  “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde
  •  “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” – Helen Keller
  •  “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
  •  “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
  •  “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” – Lou Holtz
  •  “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” – Victor Hugo
  •  “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

Many different languages also contain words that mean third person. You may notice that some of these translations of third person look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of third person is provided by Word Sense

  •  German: dritte Person‎ (fem.)
  •  French: troisième personne‎ (fem.)
  •  Tagalog: ikatlong panauhan‎
  •  Czech: třetí osoba‎ (fem.)
  •  Portuguese: terceira pessoa‎ (fem.)
  •  Scottish Gaelic: treas pearsa‎
  •  Macedonian: тре́то ли́це‎ (neut.)
  •  Romanian: persoana a treia‎
  •  Spanish: tercera persona‎ (fem.)
  •  Hebrew: נִסְתָּר‎, גּוּף שְׁלִישִׁי‎
  •  Telugu: ప్రథమ పురుషము‎
  •  Russian: тре́тье лицо́‎ (neut.)
  •  Slovak: tretia osoba‎ (fem.)
  •  Icelandic: þriðja persóna‎ (fem.)
  •  Lithuanian: trečiasis asmuo‎ (masc.)
  •  Norman: traîsième pèrsonne‎ (fem.)
  •  Albanian: veta e tretë‎ (fem.)
  •  Finnish: kolmas persoona‎
  •  Arabic: غَائِب‎ (masc.)
  •  Polish: trzecia osoba‎ (fem.)
  •  Latvian: trešā persona‎ (fem.)
  •  Italian: terza persona‎ (fem.)
  •  Danish: tredje person‎
  •  Dutch: derde persoon‎ (masc.)
  •  Esperanto: tria persono‎
  •  Navajo: baa yáʼátiʼígíí‎
  •  Bengali: প্রথম পুরুষ‎ (prôthôm purush)
  •  Greek: τρίτο πρόσωπο‎ (neut.)
  •  Japanese: 三人称‎ (さんにんしょう, sanninshō)
  •  Korean: 삼인칭‎
  •  Norwegian: tredje person‎
  •  Sanskrit: प्रथमपुरुष‎
  •  Mandarin: 第三人稱‎, 第三人称‎ (dìsānrénchēng)

What are examples of third person?

Third person can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or literary technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of third person that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. 

  •  Anna and Michael took a train from Rome, Italy to Paris that got in a crash. They wished they had stayed in New York.
  •  Scott ran into his former co-star and ex-soap opera actress Julia when he was with his wife Elaine. They were in the ensemble stellar cast together, but Julia was snubbed by the Oscars and Academy Awards.
  •  Monika enjoyed reading Pride and Prejudice while making a drink with intriguing ingredients. 
  •  The young man ought to be happy to have such happy manners and such perfect good breeding.
  •  The drag queens were excited to go to the club for a gig. They couldn’t wait to get up and perform in front of the crowd.

What are other literary techniques and devices?

There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these devices because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of literary devices from Reedsy and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you. 

  •  Simile
  •  Repetition
  •  Symbolism
  •  Chiasmus
  •  Tmesis
  •  Allegory
  •  Synecdoche
  •  Anthropomorphism
  •  Irony
  •  Hypophora
  •  Hyperbole
  •  Soliloquy
  •  Tone
  •  Imagery
  •  Archetype
  •  Paradox
  •  Dramatic irony
  •  Polysyndeton
  •  Exposition
  •  Motif
  •  Anastrophe
  •  Anaphora
  •  Oxymoron
  •  Cumulative sentence
  •  Tragicomedy
  •  Colloquialism
  •  Onomatopoeia
  •  Anachronism
  •  Tautology
  •  Personification
  •  Metaphor
  •  Frame story
  •  Allusion
  •  Metonymy
  •  Isocolon
  •  Foreshadowing
  •  Juxtaposition
  •  Zoomorphism
  •  In Medias Res
  •  Point of view
  •  Satire
  •  Litotes
  •  Euphemism
  •  Malapropism
  •  Aphorism
  •  Flashback

Overall, third person is a perspective used in prose and poetry that refers to an objective or omniscient perspective. This is different from first person perspective as well as second person perspective.

Sources:

  1. Literary Devices | Reedsy
  2. Third Person | Word Sense
  3. Examples of Writing in Third Person | Your Dictionary
  4. Third Person | IMDb
  5. First Second and Third Person | Grammarly