Personal pronouns indicate the three grammatical persons. They are inflected according to person, number and case. In the third person singular they are additionally inflected according to gender.
| Example 1 | |||
|
Ich
|
kann |
euch
|
das Buch nicht leihen. |
|
1. person
|
2. person
|
||
|
singular
|
plural
|
||
|
nominative
|
dative
|
||
| Example 2 | |||
|
Ihr
|
habt |
ihn
|
gestern besucht. |
|
2. person
|
3. person
|
||
|
plural
|
singular
|
||
|
nominative
|
accusative
|
||
|
masculine
|
|||
Personal pronouns are inflected as follows.
|
singular
|
|||||
|
1. person
|
2. person
|
3. person
|
|||
|
masculine
|
feminine
|
neuter
|
|||
| nominative |
ich
|
du
|
er
|
sie
|
es
|
| genitive* |
meiner
|
deiner
|
seiner
|
ihrer
|
seiner
|
| dative |
mir
|
dir
|
ihm
|
ihr
|
ihm
|
| accusative |
mich
|
dich
|
ihn
|
sie
|
es
|
|
plural
|
|||||
|
1. person
|
2. person
|
3. person
|
|||
| nominative |
wir
|
ihr
|
sie
|
||
| genitive* |
unser
|
euer
|
ihrer
|
||
| dative |
uns
|
euch
|
ihnen
|
||
| accusative |
uns
|
euch
|
sie
|
||
* Genitive types are rarely used.
Note 1
First-person personal pronouns indicate the speaker, second-person pronouns indicate the person being addressed and third-person pronouns a person other than the speaker and the person being addressed. First-person and second-person personal pronouns refer to people but third-person personal pronouns may or may not refer to people (but also to animals, abstract ideas etc.).
| Example | |||||
| Mein Vater | hat | einen neuen Wagen | gekauft. |
nouns
|
|
|
Er
|
hat |
ihn
|
gestern gekauft. |
third-person personal pronoun
|
|
|
person
|
not a person
|
||||
When using a third-person personal pronoun, it is possible that a noun, which has already been mentioned, is omitted.
Note 2
In the German language, the formal/polite and the informal/familiar types can be used in the second person. The formal/polite type is always written with a capital first letter and is usually used when addressing an adult. It expresses politeness, respect or lack of intimacy/familiarity.
| Examples | |
| Peter, was hälst du davon, dass wir eine Band gründen? | informal/familiar type of address |
| Herr Meier, möchten Sie einen Kaffee trinken? | formal/polite type of address |
In the following table the informal/familiar types and the formal/polite types are presented, in the singular and the plural number. One can easily conclude that the formal/polite types are identical both in the singular and the plural, which means that they remain unchanged, independent of the number of people that are being addressed (one or more).
|
formal/polite type of address
|
informal/familiar type of address
|
|||
|
singular / plural
|
singular
|
plural
|
||
|
Sie
|
du
|
ihr
|
nominative | |
|
Ihrer
|
deiner
|
euer
|
genitive * | |
|
Ihnen
|
dir
|
euch
|
dative | |
|
Sie
|
dich
|
euch
|
accusative | |
* Genitive types are rarely used.
Note 3
The pronoun es has a range of functions wider than those of a personal pronoun. For this reason, it will be introduced separately.