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 the go, download the Deutschwunder app and master German articles, pronouns, and grammar anywhere.
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….
- My brain doesn’t have distinct words in German, so it’ll just always hear “pretty” and “handsome” as synonyms so I’d never notice this on my own.
- 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.
- Understanding er, sie, and es is essential because these three small words do far more work in German than their English equivalents.
- 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.
- My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.
- 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.
- If you have a noun with a masculine article (der) then the article and the noun can be replaced with er.
Your Comments and Questions
- Please note that in English we use the pronoun it when we talk about ‘objects’ which are not equivalent to people.
- I can find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.
- Context is powerful, and with practice, you will develop the same instinct.
- Hidden-language examples are blurred — click a blurred example to reveal it.
- Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal.
- But I have a question – this also works for plural, right?
- Der Rock (the skirt) is masculine, so it is er.
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.
Use er, sie or es instead of the article and the noun
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.
er, sie, es and der, die das – What’s the Difference – Key Questions
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.
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Please note that in English we use the pronoun it when we talk about ‘objects’ which are not equivalent to people. If you have a noun with a feminine article (die) then the article and the noun can be replaced with sie. Adjust the playback speed for audio examples — still sounds fine down to about 70%. Here, “sie” would sound weird, and “die” doesn’t sound negative or distanced.
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 does NOT work because es stands for the beer and but for the beginning of the sentence, you need a word with more substance. And do NOT use es at the start of a sentence. But the bottom line is… don’t stress about this too much. It’s really a difference of vibe.
Confusing sie (she) with sie (they). Der Rock (the skirt) is masculine, so it is er. Das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter because of the diminutive suffix -chen, so grammatically it is es, not sie.
The article aphrodite casino is about the difference between “es” and “das” (“er” and “der”, “sie” and “die”) when used as pronouns. Get your head around that & you can move on swiftly to learning which nouns are either of the 3 & why they need the correct version of the articles. Clearly it’s because certain languages like French & German classify nouns as Masculine – der (er), Feminine -die (sie), or Neuter – das (es).
— 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.