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 aphrodite casino 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.
- The critical difference is the “Used for” column.
- — She is coming.sie (+ plural verb)theySie kommen.
- 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.
- Or from the other side… die sounds more distant.
What Is the Difference Between er, sie, and es?
But what matters more here is that you take a minute to check how the different examples FEEL with the different words. Or it’s kind of generic like in the last example. While it either directly stands for a noun (implied like “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ). But this is really more of a feeling than a rule.
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In writing this is clear; in speech, context does the work. Casesie (they)Sie (you formal)NominativesieSieAccusativesieSieDativeihnenIhnen Only capitalization and context distinguish them.
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.
Er, sie or es – Exercise B:
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.
How Does Noun Gender Affect Pronouns in German?
- ‘er’ and ‘sie’ feel more personal and neutral.
- Whether that guy is there or not I really don’t care.
- Or it’s kind of generic like in the last example.
- 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.
- This was not topic of the article at all.
- So far we have looked at er/sie/es as subjects (nominative case).
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.
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.
What Is the Difference Between er, sie, and es?
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.