German Personal Pronouns (Page 2 of 3) in pdf

Personal Pronouns

Page 2

The German equivalents to the above mentioned pronouns are:

ich

he (it)

you

she (it)

sie

es (er, sie)

Notice that all of the above pronouns are singular, that is they are replacing only one thing. Notice also that the pronoun "ich"

is not capitalized.

If the noun is plural, then the pronoun must also agree in number with the noun being replaced. Let us take the example "John

and Mary are nice." To indicate that there are multiple nouns being replaced we use the pronoun "they". This is third person

plural pronoun.

"They are nice".

If we put "John and Mary" into second person, we obtain the following sentence.

"You are nice".

Notice that English does not make a distinction between singular and plural in the second person. Some dialects try to make

this distinction.

"You guys are nice."

"Y'all are nice."

These are all methods that incorporate some kind of plural marker in the second person. German has a fully incorporated

second person plural which must always be used when the pronoun is plural.

There is also first person plural.

"We are nice"

Here John and Mary are both speaking. "We" is the first person plural pronoun.

These are the plural personal pronouns in German:

wir

y'all (you guys)

ihr (used with a group of people on a first name basis)

they

sie

The technical term for the distinction between singular and plural is called "number".

There is an additional feature in German to the pronoun system. This is one of register (degree of formality). If the second

person pronoun is used and the speaker feels distance or unfamiliarity with the person being spoken to, then a special pronoun

indicating formal register is used. This pronoun is "Sie". Notice that "Sie" is always capitalized. "Sie" functions as both singular

and plural. There is no exaxt equivalent in English to this pronoun. The German pronoun "Sie" means "you" but when

speaking to someone on a last name basis.

German Personal Pronouns Page 2