Not learning nouns with articles. If the noun’s article is der or das, the dative pronoun is ihm. Mixing up ihm and ihr in dative.
And we only have one, so the assumption is that it’s the more important element. Here, it’s not 100% clear if I was told BY Thomas or ABOUT Thomas. This could be a real subject, but the double “von” in the sentence does sound shitty. It’s the “topic”, a prepositional object. The reader is in the dative as recipient. “wird … berichtet” is a passive construction in my interpretation.
But what matters more here is that you take a minute to check how the different examples FEEL with the different words. Or it’s kind of generic like in the last example. While it either directly stands for a noun (implied like “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ). But this is really more of a feeling than a rule.
- Which can make you feel lost… but it can also feel like freedom.
- The fastest way to internalize the link between articles and pronouns is through repeated practice.
- Only capitalization and context distinguish them.
- Sometimes you can but they feel different.
- It’s not really wrong, but it does sound a bit odd and I don’t think a German would use it.
If you pay attention to native speakers, you’ll hear der, die, das and den and dem a LOT at the beginning of sentences like these. So der and die are more pointy than er and sie. The difference in pointy-ness is the same. The only real difference to English is the second example here, where in English that and it work, while in German das is way more idiomatic than es.
In the first example, it sounds REALLY weird, in the second one, both sound okay. And er, sie, es are pronouns, so they stand in for persons and things in our sentence. If you’re looking for my lessons, articles about topics or resources I have posted about, search here.
In this example, I don’t feel there’s a difference between “er” and “der”, but if we make it a conevrsation then der gets a slight edge, for me anyway. I think most people would read this as “about Thomas” because the topic is more important for the verb “berichten” than the person doing it. And the only difference really is that the version with sie sounds less pointy and a bit more personal. For practice on the go, download the Deutschwunder app and master German articles, pronouns, and grammar anywhere.
What Is the Difference Between er, sie, and es?
— You are coming.ihr (dative of sie)her / to herIch gebe ihr das Buch. FormMeaningExamplesie (+ singular verb)she / it (feminine)Sie kommt. The table is masculine, so it gets the masculine pronoun.
- And please do make a quiz or exercise about this topic!
- I didn’t know about this “pretty” vs “handsome” and I’m not sure it’s consensus in English.
- So they wouldn’t sound wrong, they just sound quite weird in these examples above.
- The critical difference is the “Used for” column.
- — She is coming.sie (+ plural verb)theySie kommen.
- In writing this is clear; in speech, context does the work.
Learn German
— The table is new. If you know a noun’s article, you automatically know which pronoun to use. This applies to people, animals, objects, and abstract concepts alike. The critical difference is the “Used for” column. Understanding er, sie, and es is essential because these three small words do far more work in German than their English equivalents.
400+ quizzes, games, and AI pronunciation practice — all in one app. Conjugations can seem confusing, but just listen to the lesson and answer the question and you’ll get them. Repeat this lesson until you can easily answer the questions. If you have a noun with a masculine article (der) then the article and the noun can be replaced with er. Hidden-language examples are blurred — click a blurred example to reveal it. Looking forward to the practice session.
How Does Noun Gender Affect Pronouns in German?
And the worst part is the young aphrodite casino Swabians were REALLY nice people. I had a period in my life where I knew many young people from Baden-Württemberg and they all did it. In Austria (and perhaps southern Germany), when referring to another person who is familiar, it’s usual to use the definite article with their name.
Sometimes you can but they feel different. ‘es’ is too bland for referring to a specific thing at the start of a sentence. ‘er’, ‘sie’, ‘es’ are neutral stand-ins. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to clear things up. So yeah… I think this might actually be worth a proper practice session so I’ll see that I’ll set one up for the coming weeks. I kind of feel that some of you are probably a little disappointed because you expected some more clear cut rules.