Meet and Greet

Subject Pronouns

What is a subject pronoun?

A subject pronoun is a word such as I, you, he etc. It refers to a person or a thing that performs an action. A subject pronoun is linked to a verb, and in most cases the verb will follow it directly.

For example:
ich bin ⇨ I am
du bist ⇨ you are
er ist ⇨ he is

Table: German Subject Pronouns

	German	English
Singular
1st person	ich	I
2nd person	du / Sie	you (informal) / you (formal)
3rd person	er / sie / es	he / she / it
Plural
1st person	wir	we
2nd person	ihr / Sie	you (informal) / you (formal)
3rd person	sie	they

You - du, ihr and Sie

In German, there are three ways of saying you. The informal word is du in the singular and ihr in the plural. In the formal form both, singular and plural, are Sie. But don't worry too much about the formal form just yet. We will come back to this in our Numbers Module in level A1.

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He, she and it – er, sie and es

In English we mainly refer to things as it.

For example:
I love this book. It is very good.

However, in German, er (he, it), sie (she, it) and es (it) are mainly used to refer to things, animals and people. Er is used for masculine nouns, sie is used for feminine nouns and es is used for neuter nouns.

For example:
Der Film ist gut. ⇨ Er ist gut. – The movie is good. ⇨ It's good.
Die Musik ist gut. ⇨ Sie ist gut. – The music is good. ⇨ It's good.
Das Buch ist gut. ⇨ Es ist gut. – The book is good. ⇨ It's good.

But don't worry about the gender of nouns yet. We will talk about that in our Family Module in level A1.

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You - man

The subject pronoun man is used in the same way as we use you to mean people in general.

For example:
Man kann das Auto kaufen. ⇨ You can buy that car.


Note: German subject pronouns only have a capital letter when they begin the sentence. The only exception to this is the polite pronoun Sie which always begins with a capital S.

For example:
Wie heißt du? ⇨ What's your name? (informal)
Wie heißen Sie? ⇨ What's your name? (formal)

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Let's have a look at the subject pronouns in connection with the German verb sein – to be. Below you can see how this important verb is formed according to its subject pronouns.

Table: sein – to be

Pronoun	sein (to be)	Completed Form	Meaning
ich	bin	ich bin	I am
du	bist	du bist	you are
er / sie / es	ist	er / sie / es ist	he / she / it is
wir	sind	wir sind	we are
ihr	seid	ihr seid	you are
sie / Sie	sind	sie / Sie sind	they / you are

Example sentences:
Ich bin aus München. ⇨ I'm from Munich.
Wie alt bist du? ⇨ How old are you?
Er ist 9 Jahre alt. ⇨ He is 9 years old.
Wir sind beide 21. ⇨ We are both 21.
Seid ihr aus Lübeck? ⇨ Are you from Lübeck?
Sie sind aus Berlin. ⇨ They are from Berlin.
Wie alt sind Sie? ⇨ How old are you?

Tip
Germans often only give their title and surnames when they introduce themselves or answer the phone. The titles Herr and Frau are used like Mr and Mrs in English. Nowadays the word Fräulein is used far less frequently in German than the English Miss. Women over 18 are normally referred to as Frau, irrespective of whether they are married or not.