In written, the das has to go or there needs to be a – or something because you’re kind of restarting your sentence. You’re established a new guy, so you couldn’t refer to the new guy with “he”. With the question, you do need the pointy version, and same for “den, der mit Maria redet” because this “den” is actually not an entity yet. This is pretty natural and a German would certainly use it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but it’s not part of the standard vernacular. According to them, it’s rare in Berlin.
- Das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter because of the diminutive suffix -chen, so grammatically it is es, not sie.
- — You are coming.ihr (dative of sie)her / to herIch gebe ihr das Buch.
- And we only have one, so the assumption is that it’s the more important element.
- 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.
- Der, die, das have an element of pointing, while er, sie, es are super neutral.
- I was doing my normal reading and listening and all of a sudden there was this person – an “er” – in the next sentence.
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 refers to a specific thing. Whether that guy is there or not I really don’t care.
— 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.
- My brain doesn’t have distinct words in German, so it’ll just always hear “pretty” and “handsome” as synonyms so I’d never notice this on my own.
- 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.
- My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
- Understanding er, sie, and es is essential because these three small words do far more work in German than their English equivalents.
- If you have a noun with a masculine article (der) then the article and the noun can be replaced with er.
- 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.
- 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.
Your Comments and Questions
Please note that in English we use the pronoun it when we talk about ‘objects’ which are not equivalent to people. If you have a noun with a feminine article (die) then the article and the noun can be replaced with sie. Adjust the playback speed for audio examples — still sounds fine down to about 70%. Here, “sie” would sound weird, and “die” doesn’t sound negative or distanced.
Er, sie or es – Exercise B:
It’s not really possible to transfer that to English, because it’s quite subtle, but I hope you still get a bit of a sense of it. Or from the other side… die sounds more distant. And they can handle being in the first position of a sentence.
Er, sie or es – Exercise B:
— 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.
Confusing sie (she) with sie (they). Der Rock (the skirt) is masculine, so it is er. Das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter because of the diminutive suffix -chen, so grammatically it is es, not sie.
And this is also a fact.I’m about to do just that, because the beer is there, and we’re pretty much done here for today. This does NOT work because es stands for the beer and but for the beginning of the sentence, you need a word with more substance. And do NOT use es at the start of a sentence. But the bottom line is… don’t stress about this too much. It’s really a difference of vibe.
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.
Another thing that’s important to know is that der and die can sound less personal and distant, while er and sie sound a bit more like people. So they wouldn’t sound wrong, they just sound quite weird in these examples above. The difference to das and es is that er and aphrodite casino sie (and their case versions) are not quite as bland as es. This feels weird, and you’d use that instead because it can’t really handle that much focus.
Den kenne ich nicht, aber der, der mit Maria redet, das ist Thomas. To say also something related to the topic, for me the pointy der, die, das translate as that one. I’m pretty sure German too must have some word for handsome, that only applies to males, but I can’t remember how it goes. I re-read the 1st sentence and the 2nd. I was doing my normal reading and listening and all of a sudden there was this person – an “er” – in the next sentence. Just make sure you don’t worry too much about it when trying to speak.