German Relative Pronouns
A relative pronoun is used to make it clear who or what you are talking about. The English relative pronouns are
who,
which,
whom and
that.
For example:
That's the boy
who dated my daughter.
I like the advice
that you gave me last week.
Let's quickly break these sentences down. As shown here, you can see that these sentences are made up of a main clause and a relative clause.
That's the boy who dated my daughter.
I like the advice that you gave me last week.
A main clause is the part of a sentence that makes sense on its own. In this case
That's the boy or
I like the advice and the relative clause is used to give more information to make the situation clearer which is shown here in red.
Here are a couple more examples. However, in these sentences the relative clause splits the main clause:
The ring
that you bought was quite expensive.
His dog,
which was very old died last night.
Most relative pronouns in German have the same form as the definite article. Here is a full table:
Table: Relative Pronouns
|
Nominative |
Accusative |
Dative |
| Masculine |
der |
den |
dem |
| Feminine |
die |
die |
der |
| Neutral |
das |
das |
dem |
| Plural (all genders) |
die |
die |
denen |
When to use which relative pronoun depends on the gender, the case and whether the relative pronoun refers to something singular or plural. German relative clauses are always separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. Word order also comes into play in relative sentences. The verb goes to the end of the sentence.
Example Sentences:
Mein Opa,
der aus Spanien kommt, hat mir Spanisch beigebracht. ⇨ My grandpa, who's from Spain, taught me Spanish.
Das Kleid,
das du heute trägst, ist sehr schön. ⇨ The dress that you're wearing today is very nice.
Das ist die Tasche,
die ich kaufen möchte. ⇨ That's the bag that I'd like to buy.
Wir haben Ihren Lebenslauf bekommen,
den Sie uns geschickt haben. ⇨ We have received the CV you sent us.
Gibt es Fremdsprachen,
die Sie nicht sprechen können? ⇨ Are there any foreign languages you can't speak?
Es gibt viele Schüler,
denen wir helfen sollten. ⇨ There are many pupils whom we should help.
| Tip |
In English we often miss out relative pronouns. For example: The man I saw... instead of: The man who I saw… You can never miss out the relative pronoun in German! |
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