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.
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 me – American (and older) – pretty is feminine. You can describe a guy as pretty, but then it is a “girlish” appearance (and generally not really a complement). I can find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.
Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal. But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared aphrodite casino to ‘er’ or ‘sie’. ‘der’ and ‘die’ are more pointy and work nicely in sentence-initial spots.
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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.
- I kind of feel that some of you are probably a little disappointed because you expected some more clear cut rules.
- The reader is in the dative as recipient.
- 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.
- 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.
- If the noun’s article is der or das, the dative pronoun is ihm.
Table of Contents
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.
- ’, although I know you can also use ‘der’ for people so that’s probably just an effect of (mis-)translation….
- Repeat this lesson until you can easily answer the questions.
- Mixing up ihm and ihr in dative.
- And this is also a fact.I’m about to do just that, because the beer is there, and we’re pretty much done here for today.
- This is quite subtle, and it doesn’t always matter, but in some contexts, it can make a difference in tone.
- Avoid starting a sentence with ‘es’ when it refers to a specific thing.
- “wird … berichtet” is a passive construction in my interpretation.
Why Do Germans Say “sie” for So Many Things?
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 ear.
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.
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.
Your Comments and Questions
— 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.
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.”