The Impersonal Pronoun "man"
In English, to make a general statement that applies to everyone, we use "you", "people", or "one". In German, you express this with the impersonal pronoun man.
Don't confuse man with the noun der Mann (the man). The pronoun man is written lowercase (unless it starts a sentence) and has only one "n".
Grammatically, man acts just like er, sie, or es. It always takes the third-person singular form of the verb.
| one / you (impersonal) | man |
Expressing Rules and Guidelines
Because man refers to people in general, it is perfect for expressing social rules or guidelines. It frequently pairs with modal verbs like sollen (should), dürfen (to be allowed to), or können (can) to describe what "one" should or shouldn't do in a certain place.
You can also use it without a modal verb to state what people generally do (or don't do) in a specific situation.
Word Order with "man"
Like any subject pronoun, man prefers to stay close to the conjugated verb. In a standard sentence, man is in the first position and the verb is in the second.
However, if you start the sentence with a location or a question word, the verb remains locked in the second position. When this happens, man simply slides into the third position, right after the verb.
