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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 56 episodes

26 I, you, he, she, it... in German

2024-03-07 12 min

Description & Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Episode 26 of the Better German Podcast! The host, Susi Blümel, introduces the personal pronouns in the German language, including the basic translations for 'I,' 'you,' 'he,' 'she,' 'it,' 'we,' 'you' (plural), and 'they.' She explains the use of personal pronouns in relation to gendered nouns and also mentions the different forms of address in German for formal and informal situations.

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Summary
    In this episode of the Better German podcast, host Susie Blumel explains how to use personal pronouns in German. She covers the direct translations of "I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they" in German and explains the importance of matching pronouns to the gender of nouns in German. Additionally, she touches on the use of different pronouns based on formal or familiar relationships in the language.

Key Topics Explored🔎

Primary Topic: Personal Pronouns in German
    Introduction to personal pronouns
Definition of personal pronouns
Use of personal pronouns in reference to persons or things
Basic translations of personal pronouns in German
Direct translations of "I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they" in German
Differentiating singular and plural forms of "you" in German
Additional information on personal pronouns
Gendered nouns and articles in German
Explanation of how German nouns are considered to be either male, female, or neutral
Matching the gender of the noun to the appropriate pronoun in German
Formal and familiar forms of address
Different use of pronouns when addressing people formally or informally in German

Related Episodes
Episode 5: Introduction to Articles
Episode 6: Wordlist Body Parts
Episode 11: Wordlist Office/Classroom
Episode 25: Guide to Learn German Nouns
Episode 27: Introduction to Parts of Speech for Learning German

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Transcript

Welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach you German and everything around the language , the countries and the culture. Hello! Welcome back to the Better German Podcast. In this episode, I'm going to tell you how to say, "I you, he, she, it, we, you, they" in German and I'm going to explain it a little bit to you, so you don't run into some things that could be confusing. Let's jump into the episode. So, these words are called Personal Pronouns. Personal, of course, because they refer to persons. Not only, they could also refer to things, but mainly to persons. Like "I" is a person "you" is referring to a person. "He, she, it" is referring to a person. And a pronoun is a word that is being used instead of a noun. Because my name is Susi, so when I say "I" it's used instead of Susi, and if I speak to you, you have a name and instead of saying your name, which I don't even know at this point, because I'm speaking to you in the podcast, I'm saying "you". So these are "Personal Pronouns," in German "Personalpronomen" or " persönliche Fürwörter". That's the same thing. "Personalpronomen" or "perönliches Fürwort," it's the same thing. "Persönlich" means "personal," regarding a person, and "Fürwort" is another word for "pronoun." So as a first thing, I'm going to give you the most direct translations. So "I" in Germany's "ich". You write it I C H. So "ich" and "I" pretty much the same thing. I don't think there's anything special to say about it, other than "I" in English has written always with a capital, in German, not. Personal pronouns, in German, even though generally in German, I think there are much more words that are written with a capital than in English, personal pronouns, all of these are not written with the capital as a rule. There's one exception, which I'm going to tell to you later. So "ich". Then "you" in the most basic translation is "du". However, "you" could be used when you're speaking to one person, or when you speak to many persons. So in German, there's two different basic translations for that. So if you speak to one person, you say "du" and if you speak to many persons or more than one person, you say "ihr". So, "you" could be "du" oder (or) "ihr". And then, the next one that I'm going to tell you is "er", that's "he," the other way round. "He" and that's "er". And then "she," —"sie". And "it" —"es". I'm going to tell you a little bit, some special use of these later, but now first we're going to finish our list. Now the next one is "we," and that's "wir". And then we have "you" again, I already told you, so if we use " you" to address more than one person, so I am speaking to "you", meaning, maybe you and your brother, you, then it would be "ihr". And then, last one here on this list, "they" is "sie". Okay. So that's the one thing and so far so good. That's not so hard. I'm going to sum it up and you can repeat it after me. "I" —"ich" "you" —"du" " he" —"er" "she" — "sie" "it" —"es" "we" — "wir" "you" — "ihr" " they" —"sie." If you were in a course of mine, we would now practice before we go into any more things. However, now I'm going to give you more information about these personal pronouns. What else is there to say about these personal pronouns? So the first thing I want you to, —I want to tell you is, as you may have heard already and if you want to know more about this, then I suggest to you to listen to the Episode 5 —Introduction to Articles. You can find this at bettergerman.info/5. In German, all objects are considered to be or, all nouns actually, are considered to be either male or female or neutral. And the way how we usually learn that is by adding the article and learning the article with the nouns, so we remember if it's male, female, or neutral. So I'm going to give you an example. "der Tisch" is "der." This is the male article, so this "Tisch", table, is considered to be male. Then "die Lampe." "die Lampe" is "the lamp," und (and) "die" is the female article and "die Lampe" is considered to be female. Und (and) "das Buch," to give you an example of each one of them, "das Buch", "das" is the neutral article, and "das Buch" is considered to be neutral. Now in English, every noun, if you replace it with a pronoun, is just "it." So when you speak about a table, it's "it." If you speak about a lamp, it's "it," and if you speak about a book, it's "it." That's quite simple. In German, we use the pronoun that fits to the article. So if you speak about a book it is "das Buch" we also say "es", which is the translation for "it". But if we speak about a lamp, the lamp is "die Lampe" and "die Lampe" is female and when we speak about it and we don't want to repeat "die Lampe", we say "sie." And if we speak about a table, "der Tisch" which is male, then we say "er".. So, when I say I'm going to give you a few more examples, so you can track with it, I bought a table. It is big." In German, it is, "Ich habe einen Tisch gekauft. Er ist groß." So " Ich habe einen Tisch gekauft" means "I bought a table." "Er ist groß." "It is big" or literally "he is big" because the table is male in German. So we say "er" which is "he." And if I speak about the lamp, I can say, "Sie ist schön." That will be in English, "it is beautiful. The lamp, it is beautiful." In German, it is, "She is beautiful." "Sie ist schön." And then the book is in this case, if your native language is English, more logical, because about a book, I would say, "Es ist gut." "It is good." And we actually see "es" which is directly translated as "it" because a book is a neutral thing. So that's the second thing that is important, when we speak about objects, we say, "he she, or it" or the translation for it in German, "er, sie, es," according to the gender of that object. So there's the second thing that is important about personal pronouns, or about "he, she, it": er, sie, es," particularly. And then another thing I'm just mentioning shortly here is in, —because I'm going to make a separate episode about it— is in German, when we speak to people or at people directly, we have two different forms. A one more formal one and the more familiar one, and we use different pronouns. So when I say, "how are you?" Then there are different pronouns used in German, depending on who you're talking to and what the situation is. So that could be either " Wie geht es dir?" It's kind of like, "How are you doing?" "Wie geht es dir?" order (or), "Wie geht es ihnen." And that is literally "how our them? Or "How are they?" And we use this, the same form, like "they," for a person when this is a superior person or a person that you've never met about and it's in a formal range. So we use "sie" for a formal thing. Okay, good. So this is a fast introduction to the personal pronouns. If you feel, "Oh my God, I need more practice about this." Then, yes, I agree. You should sit down and practice that. You can also sign up for my German course, in the Total Beginner German course that I have. We're practicing these particular pronouns very much and so you can get all the, the things you need so you are no longer confused about them at all. If you already learned some German, then this, I hope this helps you as a clarification and making things a little bit more clear. Okay, good. So let me know what you need, and I will talk to you next week.

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