— 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.
I think the most important aspect is definitely the pointy-ness though and in the right context, that can be used to make your sentence less ambiguous. And in reverse, when talking about things, they still might use der or die, because er or sie feels a bit too much like a person. This is quite subtle, and it doesn’t always matter, but in some contexts, it can make a difference in tone.
Der, die, das have an element of pointing, while er, sie, es are super neutral. It’s not really wrong, but it does sound a bit odd and I don’t think a German would use it. This is one of those examples where a learner would ask if they can also use er. Because today, we’ll explore the question Today, we’ll actually look at the difference between two groups. And welcome to a new episode of What is the Difference, the series where we look at two German words that seem to mean the same but don’t mean the same.
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.
Use er, sie or es instead of the article and the noun
The fastest way to internalize the link between articles and pronouns is through repeated practice. Ihr is dative for feminine nouns only. Ihm is dative for both masculine and neuter nouns.
- In the first example, it sounds REALLY weird, in the second one, both sound okay.
- — The table is new.
- And do NOT use es at the start of a sentence.
- 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.
- Conjugations can seem confusing, but just listen to the lesson and answer the question and you’ll get them.
- Adjust the playback speed for audio examples — still sounds fine down to about 70%.
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It sounds weird to refer to the bartender as pretty, as only feminine things can be pretty, while guys are handsome. The verb phrase is “berichten von”, so a native speaker would not be confused about the topic vs subject based on context, unless it’s REALLY vague. In fact, even some people from Cologne did it and it’s super odd to me because in Berlin we don’t do it. It always feel a bit strange to me (I’m English) to use er/sie to refer to objects not people, but much less so to use der/die.
The article is about the difference between “es” and “das” (“er” and “der”, “sie” and “die”) when used as pronouns. Get your head around that & you can move on swiftly to learning which nouns are either of the 3 & why they need the correct version of the articles. Clearly it’s because certain languages like French & German classify nouns as Masculine – der (er), Feminine -die (sie), or Neuter – das (es).
- And er, sie, es are pronouns, so they stand in for persons and things in our sentence.
- While it either directly stands for a noun (implied like “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ).
- This is one of those examples where a learner would ask if they can also use er.
- Der Computer funktioniert nicht.
- 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.
- It’s the “topic”, a prepositional object.
- Here, “sie” would sound weird, and “die” doesn’t sound negative or distanced.
Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal. But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared to ‘er’ or ‘sie’. ‘der’ and ‘die’ are more pointy and work nicely in sentence-initial spots.
“das ist” or “es ist” – learners often wonder about the difference and the German way of doing it is a little different than English. My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
This explanation really clarifies the nuances between these German pronouns and articles. Listen to natives and copy sentence starts where ‘der’, ‘die’, ‘das’ appear. Avoid starting a sentence with ‘es’ when it aphrodite casino refers to a specific thing. Whether that guy is there or not I really don’t care.
If I wanted to do a slight dig I might refer to a guy as a pretty boy (like Arnold S’s girly man reference). For me – American (and older) – pretty is feminine. You can describe a guy as pretty, but then it is a “girlish” appearance (and generally not really a complement). I can find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.
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