How to learn Relative pronouns in German

Relative pronouns in German

If you’re looking into relative pronouns, you’re starting to really advance your German skills!

Using relative pronouns (and the relative clauses they introduce) is a nice way to add some sophistication to your German writing & speaking

Pronouns in general replace other nouns / noun phrases so that we don’t have tediously (or at least obnoxiously) repeat ourselves.

How obnoxious can a couple sentences be without pronouns you ask? Let’s compare one with and one without…

No pronouns:

My cross-eyed pony is a circus performer.

My cross-eyed pony can juggle.

My cross-eyed pony is a star! I love my cross-eyed pony.

With pronouns:

My cross-eyed pony is a circus performer. She can juggle. She can walk a tightrope. She is a star! I love my her!

Relative pronouns are slightly different — instead of replacing a noun / noun phrase, they are used to refer back to information previously mentioned.

Rather than getting theoretical about relative pronouns and THEN showing you examples, we’re just going to look at examples right away.

In each example, we will talk about what you need to know to pick the correct relative pronoun:

the gender of the noun being referred to
the case of the relative pronoun in its own clause

You will also see in every example how the clause the relative pronoun heads up (italicized below!) always has the conjugated verb at the very end

(vs. standard word order of the conjugated verb being in position #2).

This is because a relative clause is a type of dependent clause (i.e. it can’t stand alone –unlike an independent clause — and still make sense) and dependent clauses in German (but NOT in English!) always ‘kick’ the conjugated verb to the end of the clause. Just cuz.