Reflexive vs Non-Reflexive Verbs - Intermediate

This intermediate exercise checks whether you can choose between a reflexive pronoun and no reflexive in trickier English sentences. Some answers are forms such as yourselves, themselves, herself, itself, or ourselves. Other answers are ordinary verbs with no reflexive, such as complained, prepared, listened, rested, settled, and embraced.

The questions include phrases that many learners overuse with reflexives because of translation from another language. In English, people usually complain, listen, rest, and settle without adding themselves. But you do need a reflexive in sentences like make yourselves at home, found themselves lost, prides herself on, and got itself stuck. The skill is to read the whole sentence and decide whether the reflexive adds a necessary object or meaning. Several answers are complete verbs, not pronouns, so grammar and vocabulary work together. This is especially useful if your first language uses reflexive forms more often than English does normally.