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.
- 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 practice on the go, download the Deutschwunder app and master German articles, pronouns, and grammar anywhere.
- If you know a noun’s article, you automatically know which pronoun to use.
- But what matters more here is that you take a minute to check how the different examples FEEL with the different words.
- So der and die are more pointy than er and sie.
“das ist” or “es ist” – learners often wonder about the difference and the German way of aphrodite casino doing it is a little different than English. My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
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.
- This could be a real subject, but the double “von” in the sentence does sound shitty.
- But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared to ‘er’ or ‘sie’.
- This feels weird, and you’d use that instead because it can’t really handle that much focus.
- 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.
- But the bottom line is… don’t stress about this too much.
- Or at least it’s very unlikely.
— 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.
Your Comments and Questions
It’s NOT about the difference between der, die and das. This was not topic of the article at all. Why not address the reason for 3 versions of the same pronoun or definite & indefinite articles right up front? ’, although I know you can also use ‘der’ for people so that’s probably just an effect of (mis-)translation….
Er, sie or es – Exercise B:
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.
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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.
And the worst part is the young Swabians were REALLY nice people. I had a period in my life where I knew many young people from Baden-Württemberg and they all did it. 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.
A door (die Tür) is sie, not es. So far we have looked at er/sie/es as subjects (nominative case). Context is powerful, and with practice, you will develop the same instinct. In written German, Sie with a capital S always means the formal “you.” Lowercase sie means “she,” “it,” or “they.”
Sometimes you can but they feel different. ‘es’ is too bland for referring to a specific thing at the start of a sentence. ‘er’, ‘sie’, ‘es’ are neutral stand-ins. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to clear things up. 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. I kind of feel that some of you are probably a little disappointed because you expected some more clear cut rules.