English grammar English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, Sentence (linguistics), sentences, and whole texts. Overview This article describes a generalized, present-day Standar ...

, the

personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...

you In Modern English, the word "''you''" is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from ...

'' can often be used in the place of ''

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

'', the singular impersonal pronoun, in

colloquial speech Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

In English

The generic ''you'' is primarily a colloquial substitute for ''

''. For instance, :"Brushing one's teeth is healthy" can be expressed less formally as : "Brushing your teeth is healthy."

Generic pronouns in other languages

Germanic

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, the

informal Formal, formality, informal or informality imply the complying with, or not complying with, some set of requirements ( forms, in Ancient Greek). They may refer to: Dress code and events * Formal wear, attire for formal events * Semi-formal att ...

second-person singular personal pronoun ("you")—just like in English—is sometimes used in the same sense as the indefinite pronoun ("one"). In Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, these are also and . In Dutch the

second-person singular personal pronoun ("you")—just like in English—is frequently used in the same sense as the indefinite pronoun ("one").

Slavic

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, the second person is used for some impersonal constructions. Sometimes with the second-person singular pronoun , but often in the pronoun-dropped form. An example is the proverb with the literal meaning "if you chase after two hares, you will not catch even one", or figuratively, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".

Uralic

In Finnish, the second-person pronoun can sometimes be generic, but this use is only recommended in spoken or otherwise informal language. Other constructs are more neutral, such as a verb without a pronoun and in the third person ( zero person) or in the

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of ...

("fourth person"), somewhat similar to ''one'' in English. The second person is popular largely due to the influence of English. A similar formation, though without the pronoun ''sinä'' and therefore only with the second-person

possessive suffix In linguistics, a possessive affix (from ) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive affixes are found in many languages of the world. The '' Wor ...

''-si'', can be encountered in some dialects.

Arabic

In Darija (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

as spoken in the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

), there are two distinct singular second-person pronouns, one masculine (used when addressing a man) and one feminine (used when addressing a woman); but when used as generic pronouns, the speaker uses the pronoun with the gender corresponding to their ''own'' gender, rather than that of the person they are addressing.Souag, Lameen
Jabal al-Lughat: Impersonal vs. personal "you"
Blog entry, posted 2007 September 9; accessed 2007 October 2.

Japonic

In Japanese, the sentence structure may be adjusted to make the

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by Health professional, healthcare professionals. The patient is most often Disease, ill or Major trauma, injured and in need of therapy, treatment by a physician, nurse, op ...

of an action, or even the action itself, the topic of a sentence, thus avoiding the use of a pronoun altogether.