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He's the man. He bought a house. He's the man who bought a house.
I have a car. I drive the car to work. I have a car that I drive to work.
Er ist der Mann. Er hat ein Haus Er ist der Mann, der ein Haus
gekauft. gekauft hat.
Ich habe einen Wagen. Ich fahre Ich habe einen Wagen, den ich
den Wagen zur Arbeit. zur Arbeit fahre.
Rules:
1. Relative pronoun introduces a relative clause.
2. Commas are used before introducing a relative clause
3. Find the antecedent (Bezugswort): what are referring to?
4. Determine the gender and number of the antecedent: how many and what
gender?
5. Figure out how the relative pronoun is used in the relative clause(subject, direct
object, indirect object) and which case that will require.
6. The conjugated verb is placed at the end of the relative clause.
Word order:
Antecedent:
Gender:
Case:
Relative Pronoun:
Gender: Feminine
Case: Dative
Test 3 : The women to whom we gave the books were very happy.
Die Frauen, denen wir die Bücher gegeben haben, waren sehr glücklich.
Antecedent:
Gender:
Case:
Relative Pronoun:
Gender:
Case:
Relative Pronoun:
Gender:
Case:
Relative Pronoun:
Test 4: I know the man whose dog is called Angie.
__________________________________________
Ich kenne den Mann, dessen Hund Angie heißt.
Antecedent:
Gender:
Case:
Relative Pronoun:
Other Rules:
1. In English, we often leave out the "that" relative pronoun ("The film I saw last night was
bad" is really "The film THAT I saw last night ..."). In German you cannot omit the relative
pronoun from a sentence -- you must always have a der, die, das or something.
2. You cannot separate the relative pronoun from any preposition that goes with it. (Verb with
fixed Prep)
sich freuen auf Das ist ein Hund, vor dem man Angst haben soll.
über Der Freund, auf den ich warte, ist neu in der Stadt
warten auf
Questions:
Wo ist das Buch, das Sie mir geschenkt haben?
Where is the book that you gave me as a present?
das
den
die
Der Briefträger, der von meinem Hund gebissen wurde, heißt Manny.