Subject pronouns in German

• A subject pronoun explains who or what is doing the action in a sentence.

• It replaces the noun - the name of a person or thing doing the action.

• Subject pronouns are words such as I,you,he,she,it,we and they.

• For example, instead of the name Sarah, the subject pronoun would be 'she', and instead of 'my friends and I', the subject pronoun would be 'we'.

Get to know the subject pronouns before you start using them in verbs.

There are ten subject pronouns in German.

German has four words for you:

• du is singular and is used for one friend or relative, or someone familiar.

• ihr is plural and is used for several friends or relatives, familiar people.

• Sie is the formal form and can be singular or plural. It is used when addressing people who are not personally known or when showing respect.

• Man does not refer to a specific person. It means people, one, or someone in general.

For example: Man kann hier schwimmen – People can swim here.

Remember:

The formal Sie (you) always has a capital letter. This sets it apart from sie with a lower case letter, which can mean ‘she’ or ‘they.’

The ten subjects pronouns are:

In German, the verb needs to ‘agree’ with the subject pronoun.

This means the verb can change depending on the person or thing doing the action.

Here’s how the verb spielen (to play) changes in the present tense with different subject pronouns:

• ich spiele – I play
• du spielst – you play
• er spielt – he plays
• wir spielen – we play

Using the wrong ending sounds incorrect — similar to saying “I plays” in English. This verb agreement happens in all tenses, not just the present.

It is also important to make sure that pronouns follow the correct German word order. In most German sentences the word order is:

subject – verb - rest of sentence

For example:

Ich esse Obst und Gemüse. – I eat fruit and vegetables.

If an adverb, such as a time or place phrase, is placed at the beginning of the sentence, the verb comes second. This moves the subject pronoun after the verb:

For example:

Normalerweise esse ich Obst und Gemüse. - Normally I eat fruit and vegetables.

The verb has stayed in the second position and the subject (ich) has moved after the verb. This is called inversion.

Practise what you've learned about subject pronouns with this quiz.