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Although in English, we use the pronoun "you" for
both one listener and more than one, for both listeners we know well
and those we do not know, in German we must make distinctions among
these various "you" 's.
Sie is both singular and plural, just like "you." However, Sie is not used for people with whom one is intimate, such as friends or family members, or for other people with whom one has a fairly casual relationship, such as classmates and fellow students. Sie is always capitalized. For intimate, casual relationships, the pronouns du and ihr are used. The pronoun du is used to address one person; ihr is used to address more than one person. Sie, du and ihr are the nominative forms. The table below includes all the case forms of these pronouns. |
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| The table below shows the personal pronouns in
English and German. Whether one uses the masculine, feminine or neuter
pronoun in German depends on the gender of the noun. All German nouns,
not just those which refer to people, but also those which refer to things,
are masculine, feminine or neuter. When we learn a noun in German, we
must also learn its gender and its plural form.
There is only one plural form for all genders; the gender of the noun does not matter in the plural. |
Click here for an explanation of case.
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Click here to practice the nominative case forms.
Click here to practice the accusative case forms.
Click here to practice the dative case forms.
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| Nominative |
wer? |
who? |
| Accusative |
wen? |
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| Dative |
wem? |
to whom? for whom? |
| Genitive |
wessen? |
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Relative pronouns introduce relative clauses, which describe a noun in another clause. Because they describe a noun, they agree with the noun in gender and number. Because they represent that noun operating in a relative clause, the case agrees with the function of the pronoun in the clause. Because a relative clause is necessarily a dependent clause, the inflected verb is "kicked" to the end of the relative clause by the relative pronoun. |
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| Gender and Number | The antecedent may be any case. |
Any of the relative clauses can be combined with the main clauses, because they match the gender and number of the antecedent. The case does not necessarily match, however, because the case of the relative pronoun tells you its function in the relative clause. |
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masculine singular |
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feminine singular |
Kennst du die Frau, |
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neuter singular |
Wir sprechen mit dem Kind, |
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all genders plural |
Hier ist das Haus der Nachbarn, |
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Die Moritat von Mackie
Messer by Bertolt Brecht has a lot of relative
pronouns, along with links to a
related exercise.
The folk-tale Hiddensee has an exercise
on relative pronouns as well.
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©A. Campitelli, Greensboro, NC 1999-2001