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.
Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal. But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared to ‘er’ or ‘sie’. ‘der’ and ‘die’ are more pointy and work nicely in sentence-initial spots.
— You are coming.ihr (dative of sie)her / to herIch gebe ihr aphrodite casino das Buch. FormMeaningExamplesie (+ singular verb)she / it (feminine)Sie kommt. The table is masculine, so it gets the masculine pronoun.
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.
- In fact, even some people from Cologne did it and it’s super odd to me because in Berlin we don’t do it.
- Not learning nouns with articles.
- The question mark immediately after the name is implied.
- If you’re looking for my lessons, articles about topics or resources I have posted about, search here.
- Hi Emmanuel, thanks a lot for this article, I am trying to get to B2 and this topic is for me particularly confusing.
Table of Contents
“das ist” or “es ist” – learners often wonder about the difference and the German way of doing it is a little different than English. My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
Learn German Faster
- And please do make a quiz or exercise about this topic!
- So they wouldn’t sound wrong, they just sound quite weird in these examples above.
- In writing this is clear; in speech, context does the work.
- I didn’t know about this “pretty” vs “handsome” and I’m not sure it’s consensus in English.
- The critical difference is the “Used for” column.
- Or from the other side… die sounds more distant.
- — She is coming.sie (+ plural verb)theySie kommen.
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.
Why Do Germans Say “sie” for So Many Things?
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.
In writing this is clear; in speech, context does the work. Casesie (they)Sie (you formal)NominativesieSieAccusativesieSieDativeihnenIhnen Only capitalization and context distinguish them.
What Is the Difference Between er, sie, and es?
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.
— She is coming.sie (+ plural verb)theySie kommen. The word sie is famously overloaded in German. In casual speech, Germans often switch to er or sie based on the child’s actual gender, but the grammatical rule says es. This feels strange to English speakers, but it is grammatically correct. Der Computer funktioniert nicht.
Table of Contents
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.