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Lesson 3 - Subject Pronouns

Before discussing verb forms in the German language, you'll have to know a bit about 'subjects'.

This lesson only discusses subject pronouns; pronouns as a whole will be discussed in detail in later lessons. The subject of a sentence is usually a noun that names a person or thing that performs the action. A pronoun is a word that takes the place of that noun.

First-person & Second-person Pronouns

In German, there are two ways of addressing people, either formal or informal.
The informal is usually used when addressing friends & children, while the formal method is used with people whom you may not know well or who are older than you.

First-person & Second-person Pronouns
Singular Pronoun		Plural Pronoun
ich	I	wir	we
du	you - informal	ihr	you - informal
Sie	you - formal	Sie	you - formal

Third-person Pronouns

In German, the subject pronoun must follow the gender of the noun it replaces. Since some German masculine nouns are inanimate objects, the German masculine pronoun can mean 'it' when referring to something inanimate, or it can mean 'he' when referring to something male. The same thing occurs with female and neuter pronouns.

Third-person Pronouns
Masculine Noun		Masculine Pronoun
der Arzt	doctor	er	he
der Tisch	table	er	it
Feminine Noun		Feminine Pronoun
die Mutter	mother	sie	she
die Wand	wall	sie	it
Neuter Noun		Neuter Pronoun
das Kind	child	es	he/she
das Mädchen	girl	es	she
das Papier	paper	es	it
Plural Noun		Plural Pronoun
die Kinder	children	sie	they
die Blumen	flowers	sie	they
die Stühle	chairs	sie	they

The German 'sie/Sie' might be very confusing for the beginner German learners. Don't worry though, you should be able to easily differentiate between their intended meanings in a sentence when you learn verb conjugation.

Now that you know the German subject pronouns, you're ready to learn about verbs.