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.
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.
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.
Table of Contents
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.
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 aphrodite casino 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 ear.
Learn German Faster
- Not learning nouns with articles.
- In fact, even some people from Cologne did it and it’s super odd to me because in Berlin we don’t do it.
- There is one on “Das habe ich auf bemerkt” That should probably be an ‘Auch’
- You’re established a new guy, so you couldn’t refer to the new guy with “he”.
- The question mark immediately after the name is implied.
- Hi Emmanuel, thanks a lot for this article, I am trying to get to B2 and this topic is for me particularly confusing.
- If you’re looking for my lessons, articles about topics or resources I have posted about, search here.
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.
— 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.
Or at least it’s very unlikely. 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. This topic and your prefix dictionary are exactly where I am in my journey into this heart of darkness. Or, maybe a gay guy talking about another gay guy. The elves in Lord of the Rings might be described as pretty.
- 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 the best way to feel that, I think, is to go back over the examples for it vs that that we had.
- Or, maybe a gay guy talking about another gay guy.
- But this is really more of a feeling than a rule.
- Ihm is dative for both masculine and neuter nouns.
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.
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.
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 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.
