Personal pronoun in German
Personal pronoun in German
As in English, personal pronouns exist in three grammatical persons, each with singular and plural
number.
The table here gives also the plural (nominative case only):
| English | German | Meaning |
| I | ich | 1st person, singular |
| You | du | 2nd person, singular |
| He | er | 3rd person musculine, singular |
| She | sie | 3rd person feminine, singular |
| It | es | 3rd person neuter, singular |
| we | wir | 1st person, plural |
| you | ihr | 2nd person, plural |
| they | sie | 3rd person, plural |
| you (formal) | Sie | 2nd person, plural and singular, always declined plural |
Markus studiert
Markus ist in der Universität. Er trinkt dort einen Kaffee und isst ein Brötchen. Danach geht er in die Bibliothek. Er sucht ein Buch über Biochemie. Er holt das Buch aus dem Regal und setzt sich an einen Tisch. Nach einer Stunde geht er in den Hof und raucht eine Zigarette. Danach geht er an den Tisch zurück. Er denkt: “Wenigstens eine Stunde…” und stellt das Buch wieder in das Regal.
This short story (Geschichte) is told in the 3rd person. Note how this is apparent from both the pronoun (Er or “he”) and verb forms.
Vocabulary
| English | German |
| library | die Bibliothek |
| biochemistry | die Biochemie |
| roll, biscuit | das Brötchen |
| book | das Buch |
| advancer | der Fortgeschrittene |
| advancers (pl.) | die Fortgeschrittenen |
| story | die Geschichte |
| courtyard; also court | der Hof |
| coffee | der Kaffee |
| hour | die Stunde |
| English | German |
| table | der Tisch |
| shelf | das Regal |
| cigarette | die Zigarette |
| out | aus |
| afterwards | danach |
| there | dort |
| in | in |
| after | nach |
| about | über |
| English | German |
| He thinks | Er denkt |
| He eats | Er isst |
| He gets/fetches) | Er holt |
| He smokes) | Er raucht |
| He sits) | Er setzt sich |
| He places) | Er stellt |
| He looks for) | Er sucht |
| He drinks) | Er trinkt |
| at least, at any rate | wenigstens |
| again | wieder |
Incomplete Sentences
What are we to make of short, incomplete sentences such as that: ‘Und dir?’? This translates as: ‘And for you?’
In English and German it is not always necessary to express every part of a sentence, especially in conversation where the words left out are easily understood by both or all parties.
Walk up to a stranger and say ‘And you?’ and a possible response is a hostile ‘Out of my face,
fool’.
But in the conversation between Heinrich and Karl, Heinrich knows that Karl is really meaning:
Und wie geht es dir?, with that part underlined left out of the conversational statement.
Note especially that the pronoun ‘you’ retains its case(its relation to the missing verb from the implied sentence)
distinctive in German (that is, dir instead of du) but not so in English (the form “you” covers both
cases).
