Accusative Pronouns: mich and dich
When you do something to a person or thing, they become the direct object of your sentence. Just like in English, pronouns change shape when they receive the action (for example, "I" becomes "me").
In German, the subject ich (I) becomes mich (me) in the accusative case. The subject du (you) becomes dich (you).
Common verbs for interacting with people—like lieben (to love), kennen (to know), treffen (to meet), and besuchen (to visit)—always take these accusative direct objects.
Third-Person Pronouns: ihn, sie, and es
When you want to replace a noun with a pronoun to avoid repeating yourself (like saying "I know him" instead of "I know the man"), the pronoun must match the noun's grammatical gender.
Just as we saw with articles in the previous lesson, only the masculine pronoun changes in the accusative case!
| Gender | Nominative (Subject) | Accusative (Direct Object) |
|---|
| Masculine | er (he) | ihn (him) |
| Feminine | sie (she) | sie (her) |
| Neuter | es (it) | es (it) |
Notice how the masculine noun Mann is replaced by ihn:
Because feminine and neuter direct objects don't change their forms, they are replaced by sie and es, which look exactly like their subject forms:
Finally, here is how to refer to multiple people, or to address someone formally, when they are the direct object of the sentence:
- wir (we) becomes uns (us).
- ihr (you plural, informal) becomes euch (you all).
- Sie (formal you) remains exactly the same: Sie.
- sie (they) remains exactly the same: sie (them).