My familyand I again!

[Anonymous]

I put a message on the site last night but am not happy with the answer. Could someone who is a native British speaker expalin simply if the following is correct or not.
We are an English family living in Germany.My daughter is in a German school, and when she wrote a sentence today "I have to earn some money for my family and I", (and she had also written in another sentence, my friend and I,)she was told by her teacher that it was incorrect. It should have been "my family and me and my friend and me.". When my daughter said that she had been taught otherwise her teacher asked for proof. Could someone tell me if my daughter is correct or not, and if she is, is the other way, "my family and me, and my friend and me" and me, incorrect. If so why?. Many thanks.

 

[Casiopea]

It depends on where the phrase "my family and ____" occurs in the sentence. :wink:

As a general rule, if the phrase "my family and ____" functions as the subject (i.e., the doer of the action), use "I", a subject pronoun:

EX: My family and I live in a house. (OK; Subject of 'live')

If the phrase "my family and ____" functions as an object (i.e., it comes after the verb or after a preposition), then use "me", a subject pronoun:

EX: I have to earn some money for my family and me. (OK; 'for' is a preposition)

If you are not sure if you should use "I" or "me" try this trick: replace the entire phrase "my family and ____" with the pronoun "us". If the result sounds OK, then it's grammatical, like this,

EX: My family and I live in a house.
=> Us live in a house (Not OK)
=> We live in a house. (OK)

"We" and "I" are subject pronouns.

EX: I have to earn money for my family and me.
=> I have to earn money for us. (OK)

"Us" and "me" are object pronouns.

All the best,