When talking about how algorithms sort users on social media, you often need to single out a specific person or group before describing them in a relative clause: "The one who..." or "Those who...".
To do this in German, we use the demonstrative pronouns derjenige (the one - masculine), diejenige (the one - feminine), dasjenige (the one - neuter), and the plural diejenigen (those).
How They Decline
These pronouns are essentially two words glued together: the definite article (der, die, das) and the suffix -jenig-.
Both parts of the word must change to match the gender and case of the noun they replace. The first part changes exactly like a normal der/die/das article, and the second part takes standard weak adjective endings.
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | derjenige | diejenige | dasjenige | diejenigen |
| Accusative | denjenigen | diejenige | dasjenige | diejenigen |
| Dative | demjenigen | derjenigen | demjenigen | denjenigen |
Masculine and Feminine
Let's look at the masculine and feminine forms in action. Notice how the pronoun acts as a placeholder in the main clause, setting up the relative clause that immediately follows it.
| The one (m) who writes the post sees no advertisement. | Derjenige, der den Beitrag schreibt, sieht keine Werbung. |
If the pronoun is the object of a preposition like für (which always takes the accusative case), both halves of the masculine pronoun must decline to show the accusative case: derjenige becomes denjenigen.
| The network filters the content for the one (m) who clicks a lot. | Das Netzwerk filtert den Inhalt für denjenigen, der viel klickt. |
Feminine forms follow the exact same logic, though their nominative and accusative forms look identical.
| The one (f) who reads the comments understands the algorithm. | Diejenige, die die Kommentare liest, versteht den Algorithmus. |
| The app saves the advertisement for the one (f) who searches for us. | Die App speichert die Werbung für diejenige, die uns sucht. |
Neuter
While the masculine and feminine forms usually refer to specific people, the neuter form dasjenige often refers to a thing, an action, or a general concept. Because it refers to an unspecified "thing" rather than a specific noun, it is typically followed by the relative pronoun was instead of das.
| The one (n) that the program displays is very important. | Dasjenige, was das Programm anzeigt, ist sehr wichtig. |
| I only read the one (n) that you suggest to me. | Ich lese nur dasjenige, was du mir vorschlägst. |
Plural
To talk about groups of people—like user demographics—you will use the plural form diejenigen ("those").
| Those who share the post receive an email. | Diejenigen, die den Beitrag teilen, bekommen eine E-Mail. |
| The algorithm filters the content for those who know me. | Der Algorithmus filtert den Inhalt für diejenigen, die mich kennen. |
Just like other plural adjectives, if the plural pronoun is an indirect object, it must take the dative case. The plural die changes to den, and the suffix keeps its -en ending, resulting in denjenigen.
| The algorithm displays the post to those who like it. | Der Algorithmus zeigt denjenigen den Beitrag an, die ihn mögen. |