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

In this example, I don’t feel there’s a difference between “er” and “der”, but if we make it a conevrsation then der gets a slight edge, for me anyway. 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. And the only difference really is that the version with sie sounds less pointy and a bit more personal. For practice on the go, download the Deutschwunder app and master German articles, pronouns, and grammar anywhere.
Please note that in English we use the pronoun it when we talk about ‘objects’ which are not equivalent to people. If you have a noun with a feminine article (die) then the article and the noun can be replaced with sie. Adjust the playback speed for audio examples — still sounds fine down to about 70%. Here, “sie” would sound weird, and “die” doesn’t sound negative or distanced.
Den kenne ich nicht, aber der, der mit Maria redet, das ist Thomas. To say also something related to the topic, for me the pointy der, die, das translate as that one. I’m pretty sure German too must have some word for handsome, that only applies to males, but I can’t remember how it goes. I re-read the 1st sentence and the 2nd. I was doing my normal reading and listening and all of a sudden there was this person – an “er” – in the next sentence. Just make sure you don’t worry too much about it when trying to speak.

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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.

er, sie, es and der, die das – What’s the Difference – Key Questions

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.
Der, die, das have an element of pointing, while er, sie, es are super neutral. It’s not really wrong, but it does sound a bit odd and I don’t think a German would use it. This is one of those examples where a learner would ask if they can also use er. Because today, we’ll explore the question Today, we’ll actually look at the difference between two groups. And welcome to a new episode of What is the Difference, the series where we look at two German words that seem to mean the same but don’t mean the same.
Another thing that’s important to know is that der and die can sound less 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.

• But I have a question – this also works for plural, right?
• Der Rock (the skirt) is masculine, so it is er.
• Ob der da ist oder nicht ist mir total egal.
• Please note that in English we use the pronoun it when we talk about ‘objects’ which are not equivalent to people.
• Context is powerful, and with practice, you will develop the same instinct.
• Hidden-language examples are blurred — click a blurred example to reveal it.
• I can find a lot of instances of “pretty guy” for instance.

— 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.

Your Comments and Questions

• This feels strange to English speakers, but it is grammatically correct.
• But in Berlin, we don’t do that.
• ‚er‘, ’sie‘, ‚es‘ are neutral stand-ins.
• 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.“
• 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.

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.

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 aphrodite casino “weird behavior” or explicit like “the book” ). But this is really more of a feeling than a rule.