Go to the homepage of this German Course Chapter 1: Guten Tag! University of Portsmouth
1.6 Pronouns, possessive adjectives and verbs

1. We have already met some of the German pronouns and possessive adjectives in this chapter. The table below lists them in full:

  Pronoun   Possessive
1st Person  ich "I"    mein "my"
2nd Person  du
Sie
"you"    dein
Ihr
"your"
3rd Person  er
sie
es
"he"
"she"
"it"
   sein
ihr
sein
"his"
"her"
"its"

  Pronoun   Possessive
1st Person  wir "we"    unser "our"
2nd Person  ihr
Sie
"you"    euer
Ihr
"your"
3rd Person  sie "they"    ihr "their"

The following points should be noted:

  • The German pronoun "ich" does not start with a capital letter, unlike its English equivalent "I".
  • Note that the pronoun "sie" can either mean "she" or "they" depending on context. And when it begins with a capital letter "Sie" is the formal form of "you"! Be very careful how you use this pronoun.
  • The word "ihr" can also pose difficulties. When used as a pronoun, it is the informal plural pronoun of "you". When used as a possessive adjective, it either means "her" or "their". And when it begins with a capital letter "Ihr" is the formal form of "your"!
  • The third person pronouns "er", "sie" and "es" can refer to persons. However they also substitute for all masculine, feminine and neuter nouns respectively, regardless of whether they are persons or things. The gender of German nouns will be explained fully in the next chapter.


Present tense of German verbs
The present tense of the vast majority of German verbs is formed from the infinitive of the verb - the part of speech which equates to the English "to do", "to speak" etc. In German, the infinitive almost always ends in "-en". To construct the individual forms, remove the "-en" from the infinitive and add personal endings to the remaining stem as follows:

Singular  
ich heiße I am called
du heißt
Sie heißen
You are called
(informal/formal) 
er/sie/es heißt He/she/it is called
Plural  
wir heißen We are called
ihr heißt
Sie heißen
You are called
(informal/formal) 
sie heißen They are called

The verb "heißen" is an example of a "weak" or "regular" verb in that it takes the regular personal endings for a verb in the present tense.

The only distinction is that the verb endings for the "du" person is usually "-st" and not "-t" as here. The reason why it is "du heißt" and not "du heißst" is a logical one - if that were the case, you would have three "s"'s in a row!

Test yourself!
You can test yourself on how to form the verb heißen in German by clicking on the bar below:



The verb "sein" (= to be)
Unfortunately, by no means all verbs are regular. The other verb which we have encountered so far - and also the most commonly used German verb! - is irregular:

Singular  
ich bin I am
du bist
Sie sind
You are
(informal/formal) 
er/sie/es ist He/she/it is
Plural  
wir sind We are
ihr seid
Sie sind
You are
(informal/formal) 
sie sind They are

We will practise German verbs in detail in subsequent chapters, but you may wish to have our online verb table open to help you as you progress through the course. If so, click here.

Weiter!Chapter 1.7: Conversations - Introductions

Go back to the top of the page

Print this Document Print This Page

Homepage: Paul Joyce German Course
© Paul Joyce