These pronouns are equivalent to I/me and we/us in English just with the additional dative form. Here’s a chart that breaks down first-person German pronouns into the different cases and singular versus plural versions. Chances are that if you’re reading this you already have a grasp on first-person pronouns in German, but you may not have thought too deeply about the mechanics of these pronouns. Let’s start with what’s probably the easiest: first-person pronouns. So, what are all the German personal pronouns you can use? First-Person German Pronouns It is missing because the genetive case is only applied to dependent possessive pronouns, not personal pronouns. If you are familiar with the additional German cases, you may be wondering where the genetive case is in this list. There are also dative prepositions that make any noun that follows dative, these apply to pronouns as well! In the sentence “The cashier handed Mike the groceries”, Mike is dative, so when we replace Mike with him like so: “The cashier handed him the groceries”, him is once again dative. In other words, it is the indirect object. When a pronoun is in the dative case it is the recipient of an action, or the “whom” that an action is done for. When the store is substituted for the pronoun it in the sentence “Mike is going to it”, it is accusative as well. In the sentence “Mike is going to the store”, the store is accusative and going is the verb that it’s the direct object of. When a pronoun is in the accusative, it is the direct object of a transitive verb. Therefore, when we replace Mike with the pronoun He in this sentence “He is going to the store”, He is also nominative. In the sentence “Mike is going to the store”, Mike is nominative. ![]() In basic terms, when a pronoun is in the nominative, it is the subject that is performing an action. Since the variety of cases are likely the most challenging part about learning personal pronouns in German let’s do a refresher on the three relevant cases and how they operate in respect to pronouns! Nominative (written as Nominativ in German) No need to be overwhelmed, though, I’m going to do my best to break it down into digestible chunks. ![]() This is because German has unfamiliar cases and formal versions of pronouns. One of which being that German has more personal pronouns than English. While English and German pronouns function in the same way, there are a few major differences. German pronouns work the same way! German Pronouns Once you’ve established it’s Mike you’re talking about, you can use pronouns to refer to him in following sentences. Mike drove home.” You can say “Mike went to the store. Of course, you never have to replace a noun with a pronoun, but doing so makes the sentence more efficient and natural-sounding (as opposed to being forced to say the noun all the time i.e: “Mike went to the store.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |