A1 LEKTION 11 : Pronomen

Hello everyone and welcome to our video series on learn German for beginners.
In the last lesson you learned about the basic sentence structure. In this lesson we will learn
various pronouns in the nominative case.

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So let’s begin: ​Lektion 11 ​once again: ​Lektion 11

Personalpronomen im Nominativ

Before we begin with the list of pronouns, we should first understand what a pronoun is.
Personal pronouns replace the nouns in a sentence.
The pronouns make a sentence shorter and avoid the repetition of a noun in a sentence or in
a text. The pronouns in German are gender specific, hence the nouns should be replaced by
the appropriate pronoun.
There are a few other things we need to consider when we are using personal pronouns.
You need to know what person you are talking about. When talking about myself, I will be
using first person. When I am talking to someone, that someone will be the second person
and when talking about someone, that someone will be the third person. Another aspect to
be considered is, if the person is in singular or in plural. Selecting a pronoun depends on
these factors. Pronouns are not only used for persons, they are also used for things.

Let’s look at the first set of pronouns in first person. In Singular we use ICH and in Plural we
use WIR. Here are two examples:

Ich wohne in New York. -​ Here I am talking just about myself.

Wir wohnen in New York. - ​Here I am talking about ourselves, also in first person, but plural.

Let’s look at another example. Try to concentrate on the use of the pronouns ICH and WIR.

Ich heiße Maria. Ich komme aus Spanien. Ich habe ein Kind. Wir wohnen in Berlin.
Maria is talking about herself hence using the pronoun ICH. As soon as she talks about
herself and child, she uses the first person pronoun in plural: WIR

Now let’s look at the personal pronouns in the second person:

The situation in which you are talking to the second person can either be formal or informal.
This we have already learned in the previous lessons.Here are the pronouns in the informal
situation first. In singular, i.e. when we are talking to a single person, we use DU and in
Plural, when we are talking to more than one person, we use IHR. Here’s an example for
each one of them:

Max, wo wohnst du? - ​Max is a single person, hence we use DU

Julia und Peter, wo wohnt ihr? - ​Here we are talking to two people, hence we use the
pronoun in plural: IHR

Do remember, since the situation is informal, you will address the people with their first
names. Here are now pronouns of the second person in a formal situation:

for Singular, you would use here SIE, and also for plural, i-e- when you are talking to more
than one person, you would use SIE, that should be easy to remember. Here’s an example
for each one of them:

Herr Müller, wo wohnen Sie?​ And when talking to more than one person:

Herr und Frau Müller, wo wohnen Sie?

Please remember to use SIE with a capital S, irrespective of its position in the sentence.
Whether its at the beginning of a sentence, or in the middle.

Let’s move to the personal pronouns in the third person. The personal pronouns in the third
person can be in singular or in plural. Also, they are gender specific.

For masculine, you would use ER, for feminine SIE and for neutral you would use ES. And if
you are talking about more than one person, you would use SIE. Here are a few examples to
see how you can use these pronouns:

Das ist Michael. Michael wohnt in London.

We learned that pronouns are used to avoid the repetition of the nouns. Hence Michael will
be replaced with ER. ​Er wohnt in London.

Similarly in the next examples:

Das ist Michaela. Michaela wohnt in Paris.

Or ​Sie wohnt in Paris.

This SIE is written with a capital S only when its at the beginning of a sentence.

Here’s the next one:

Das ist mein Buch. Das Buch ist alt.

Or ​Es ist alt.

Now let’s look at the example for plural.

Das sind Petra und Jürgen. Petra und Jürgen wohnen in Hamburg.​ Replacing Petra und
​ his SIE is also written with a
Jürgen with a pronoun, you will say: ​Sie wohnen in Hamburg. T
capital S only when its at the beginning of a sentence.

So we have learned 4 uses of Sie in this video.If you are confused when to use which SIE,
you can watch our video on this topic. The link can be found below in the description.

Now let’s summarize the personal pronouns we have just learned.:

Do remember, pronouns can either be in the first, second or the third person. They can be in
singular or in plural.

In first person singular you would use ICH, That means when talking about yourself, you
would use ICH. Where as in plural you would use WIR. That means when you talk about you
and your family or you and friends or colleagues, then you can use WIR.

In second person, it can either be formal or informal. In informal singular you use DU where
as in plural you use IHR. In both these cases, you would address the people with their first
name. If you are talking to Anne, use DU, if you are talking to Anne and Maria, use IHR

In formal singular and plural both, you use SIE. That means when talking directly to Frau
Schmidt, use SIE and when talking to Frau und Herr Schmidt, then also, use SIE.

In the third person singular, you use ER for masculine, SIE for feminine and ES for neutral.
The pronoun in Plural for all three of them is SIE. For example, if you are talking about
Martin, or der Lehrer, then use ER. WHen talking about die Freundin or Martina, then use
SIE. When talking about a thing that’s neutral for eg a book, or car, das Buch oder das Auto,
then you will use the pronoun ES. When you are talking about more than one person or
things indirectly, for eg, when talking about Martin and Martina, then you would use SIE.

So these were the personal pronouns in the nominative case. Hope you enjoyed learning
them. Just try to form simple sentences, like we just did to practice them. This is also a good
time to learn about family in German. You can watch our video on this topic. The link can be
found below in the description.

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