Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal. But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared to ‘er’ or ‘sie’. ‘der’ and ‘die’ are more pointy and work nicely in sentence-initial spots.
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.
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.
Your Comments and Questions
- While it either directly stands for a noun (implied like “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ).
- In Austria (and perhaps southern Germany), when referring to another person who is familiar, it’s usual to use the definite article with their name.
- This is one of those examples where a learner would ask if they can also use er.
- It’s the “topic”, a prepositional object.
- And er, sie, es are pronouns, so they stand in for persons and things in our sentence.
Not learning nouns with articles. If the noun’s article aphrodite casino is der or das, the dative pronoun is ihm. Mixing up ihm and ihr in dative.
- The word sie is famously overloaded in German.
- FormMeaningExamplesie (+ singular verb)she / it (feminine)Sie kommt.
- Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but it’s not part of the standard vernacular.
- And the worst part is the young Swabians were REALLY nice people.
- Here, it’s not 100% clear if I was told BY Thomas or ABOUT Thomas.
In writing this is clear; in speech, context does the work. Casesie (they)Sie (you formal)NominativesieSieAccusativesieSieDativeihnenIhnen Only capitalization and context distinguish them.
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.
Use er, sie or es instead of the article and the noun
It sounds weird to refer to the bartender as pretty, as only feminine things can be pretty, while guys are handsome. The verb phrase is “berichten von”, so a native speaker would not be confused about the topic vs subject based on context, unless it’s REALLY vague. In fact, even some people from Cologne did it and it’s super odd to me because in Berlin we don’t do it. It always feel a bit strange to me (I’m English) to use er/sie to refer to objects not people, but much less so to use der/die.
Table of Contents
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.
What Is the Difference Between er, sie, and es?
Der, die, das have an element of pointing, while er, sie, es are super neutral. It’s not really wrong, but it does sound a bit odd and I don’t think a German would use it. This is one of those examples where a learner would ask if they can also use er. Because today, we’ll explore the question Today, we’ll actually look at the difference between two groups. 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.
I didn’t know about this “pretty” vs “handsome” and I’m not sure it’s consensus in English. I’m also surprised at you saying that in Berlin people don’t say “der Thomas”. Try both versions aloud and notice which one sounds pointy and which sounds neutral. ‘er’ and ‘sie’ feel more personal and neutral. Which can make you feel lost… but it can also feel like freedom. And the best way to feel that, I think, is to go back over the examples for it vs that that we had.
