'one' and 'ones'

Learn about the pronouns one and ones and do the exercises to practise using them.

Level: beginner

We use one (singular) and ones (plural):

after an adjective:

See those two girls? Helen is the tall one and Jane is the short one.
Which is your car, the red one or the blue one?
My trousers are torn. I need some new ones.

after the:

See those two girls? Helen is the one on the left.
Let's look at the photographs – the ones you took in Paris.

after which in questions:

You can borrow a book. Which one do you want?
Which ones are yours?

one and ones 1: Matching_MTU4NDY=
one and ones 2: GapFillTyping_MTU4NDc=

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Hello Lijo John,

'One' is counted as an indefinite pronoun, yes. The relevant wikipedia page has a useful table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_pronoun

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Peter, Thank you for the clarification. If possible can you envelop all the indefinite pronouns together to avoid future confusion?. Also, it will help to avoid pupil to refer different websites for one subject.

Hello Lijo John,

Thank you for the suggestion. We'll make a note of it for the next time we review the site organisation.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

In the following examples: (used in the rule of one / ones) 1- See those two girls? Helen is the tall one and Jane is the short one. 2- See those two girls. Helen is the one on the left. My question is, why did you use a question mark after the first clause in the first example while you did not use it in the second?

Hello FirasAkkad,

That was a mistake! It should end in a question mark and I've now fixed it.

Thanks very much for taking the time to point this out to us.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

The exercises are very helpful.