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.
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.
There is one on “Das habe ich auf bemerkt” That should probably be an ‘Auch’ And please do make a quiz or exercise about this topic! But I have a question – this also works for plural, right? But in Berlin, we don’t do that. The question mark immediately after the name is implied. Sounds fine to my ear but probably weird to the north German aphrodite casino ear.
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.
- 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.
- Understanding er, sie, and es is essential because these three small words do far more work in German than their English equivalents.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
Feminine Nouns → sie
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.
Why Do Germans Say “sie” for So Many Things?
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.
- 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.
- This feels strange to English speakers, but it is grammatically correct.
- Listen to natives and copy sentence starts where ‘der’, ‘die’, ‘das’ appear.
- Den kenne ich nicht, aber der, der mit Maria redet, das ist Thomas.
- In written German, Sie with a capital S always means the formal “you.” Lowercase sie means “she,” “it,” or “they.”
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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.
— 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.
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.
But it does have that definite-article-for-talking-about-people thing! Not in a sense that you’re ONLY doing one of those, but more in a sense of which of the two is more in focus? I can’t feel it at all either. Hi Emmanuel, thanks a lot for this article, I am trying to get to B2 and this topic is for me particularly confusing.