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

Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal. But using ‘der’ or ‘die’ can sound a bit distant or dismissive compared to ‘er’ or ‘sie’. ‘der’ and ‘die’ are more pointy and work nicely in sentence-initial spots.
It’s NOT about the difference between der, die and das. This was not topic of the article at all. Why not address the reason for 3 versions of the same pronoun or definite & indefinite articles right up front? ’, although I know you can also use ‘der’ for people so that’s probably just an effect of (mis-)translation….
If you pay attention to native speakers, you’ll hear der, die, das and den and dem a LOT at the beginning of sentences like these. So der and die are more pointy than er and sie. The difference in pointy-ness is the same. The only real difference to English is the second example here, where in English that and it work, while in German das is way more idiomatic than es.

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— The table is new. If you know a noun’s article, you automatically know which pronoun to use. This applies to people, animals, objects, and abstract concepts alike. The critical difference is the “Used for” column. Understanding er, sie, and es is essential because these three small words do far more work in German than their English equivalents.
— 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.

Feminine Nouns → sie

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 aphrodite casino find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.

Your Comments and Questions

• So far we have looked at er/sie/es as subjects (nominative case).
• ‘er’ and ‘sie’ feel more personal and neutral.
• This applies to people, animals, objects, and abstract concepts alike.
• Or it’s kind of generic like in the last example.
• This was not topic of the article at all.
• The only real difference to English is the second example here, where in English that and it work, while in German das is way more idiomatic than es.

And the worst part is the young Swabians were REALLY nice people. I had a period in my life where I knew many young people from Baden-Württemberg and they all did it. In Austria (and perhaps southern Germany), when referring to another person who is familiar, it’s usual to use the definite article with their name.

• But what matters more here is that you take a minute to check how the different examples FEEL with the different words.
• If you know a noun’s article, you automatically know which pronoun to use.
• For practice on the go, download the Deutschwunder app and master German articles, pronouns, and grammar anywhere.
• So der and die are more pointy than er and sie.
• 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).

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.

Er, sie or es – Exercise B:

It’s not really possible to transfer that to English, because it’s quite subtle, but I hope you still get a bit of a sense of it. Or from the other side… die sounds more distant. And they can handle being in the first position of a sentence.
But what matters more here is that you take a minute to check how the different examples FEEL with the different words. Or it’s kind of generic like in the last example. While it either directly stands for a noun (implied like “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ). But this is really more of a feeling than a rule.
— 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.