Personal pronouns

All nouns can be replaced by pronouns. Personal pronouns stand in place of people, living beings, things or contexts.

Harry lernt Deutsch.
Er lernt Deutsch.
Harry und Julia nehmen ein Hotel.
Sie nehmen ein Hotel.

 

There are three personal pronouns for the singular and three for the plural.

Singular       1st person      ich
    2nd person   du
    3rd person   er/sie/es
Plural   1st person   wir
    2nd person   ihr
    3rd person   sie

The polite form of address

To address strangers and other people in the polite form in German, you use "Sie" instead of "du". "Sie" takes the same verb form as the 3rd person plural ("sie" - they).

But note that unlike the personal pronoun "sie" used for both the 3rd person singular and the 3rd person plural, the polite form of address "Sie" is always capitalized. For example: "Was möchten Sie?"