“er, sie, es” or “der, die, das” What’s the Difference

Confusing sie (she) with sie (they). Der Rock (the skirt) is masculine, so it is er. Das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter because of the diminutive suffix -chen, so grammatically it is es, not sie.
400+ quizzes, games, and AI pronunciation practice — all in one app. Conjugations can seem confusing, but just listen to the lesson and answer the question and you’ll get them. Repeat this lesson until you can easily answer the questions. If you have a noun with a masculine article (der) then the article and the noun can be replaced with er. Hidden-language examples are blurred — click a blurred example to reveal it. Looking forward to the practice session.
— You are coming.ihr (dative of sie)her / to herIch gebe ihr das Buch. FormMeaningExamplesie (+ singular verb)she / it (feminine)Sie kommt. The table is masculine, so it gets the masculine pronoun.

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Not learning nouns with articles. If the noun’s article is der or das, the dative pronoun is ihm. Mixing up ihm and ihr in dative.

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• If the noun’s article is der or das, the dative pronoun is ihm.
• It always feel a bit strange to me (I’m English) to use er/sie to refer to objects not people, but much less so to use der/die.
• I kind of feel that some of you are probably a little disappointed because you expected some more clear cut rules.
• The reader is in the dative as recipient.
• I think most people would read this as “about Thomas” because the topic is more important for the verb “berichten” than the person doing it.
• Just make sure you don’t worry too much about it when trying to speak.
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It sounds weird to refer to the bartender as pretty, as only feminine things can be pretty, while guys are handsome. The verb phrase is “berichten von”, so a native speaker would not be confused about the topic vs subject based on context, unless it’s REALLY vague. In fact, even some people from Cologne did it and it’s super odd to me because in Berlin we don’t do it. It always feel a bit strange to me (I’m English) to use er/sie to refer to objects not people, but much less so to use der/die.

• This does NOT work because es stands for the beer and but for the beginning of the sentence, you need a word with more substance.
• This feels strange to English speakers, but it is grammatically correct.
• Den kenne ich nicht, aber der, der mit Maria redet, das ist Thomas.
• Listen to natives and copy sentence starts where ‘der’, ‘die’, ‘das’ appear.
• In written German, Sie with a capital S always means the formal “you.” Lowercase sie means “she,” “it,” or “they.”

Er, sie or es – Exercise B:

“das ist” or “es ist” – learners often wonder about the difference and the German way of doing it is a little different than English. My handmade dictionary for learners – meanings, word families, examples and all without AI slop.

Feminine Nouns → sie

Another thing that’s important to know is that der and die can sound less aphrodite casino personal and distant, while er and sie sound a bit more like people. So they wouldn’t sound wrong, they just sound quite weird in these examples above. The difference to das and es is that er and sie (and their case versions) are not quite as bland as es. This feels weird, and you’d use that instead because it can’t really handle that much focus.

Your Comments and Questions

— She is coming.sie (+ plural verb)theySie kommen. The word sie is famously overloaded in German. In casual speech, Germans often switch to er or sie based on the child’s actual gender, but the grammatical rule says es. This feels strange to English speakers, but it is grammatically correct. Der Computer funktioniert nicht.
I think the most important aspect is definitely the pointy-ness though and in the right context, that can be used to make your sentence less ambiguous. And in reverse, when talking about things, they still might use der or die, because er or sie feels a bit too much like a person. This is quite subtle, and it doesn’t always matter, but in some contexts, it can make a difference in tone.
If I wanted to do a slight dig I might refer to a guy as a pretty boy (like Arnold S’s girly man reference). For me – American (and older) – pretty is feminine. You can describe a guy as pretty, but then it is a “girlish” appearance (and generally not really a complement). I can find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.
The fastest way to internalize the link between articles and pronouns is through repeated practice. Ihr is dative for feminine nouns only. Ihm is dative for both masculine and neuter nouns.