Saying what something is like: subject pronouns 'er', 'sie', 'es' for 'it'
Learning outcomes
I can say what something is like, identifying grammatical gender and using the correct word for ‘it’.
I can recognise the short and long [ö] sound.
Saying what something is like: subject pronouns 'er', 'sie', 'es' for 'it'
Learning outcomes
I can say what something is like, identifying grammatical gender and using the correct word for ‘it’.
I can recognise the short and long [ö] sound.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons
Key learning points
- [ö] can be either long like in 'schön' or short like in 'plötzlich'.
- In German, subject pronouns tell us the grammatical gender of the subject.
- German has three words for the subject pronoun 'it' - masculine 'er', feminine 'sie' and neuter 'es'.
Keywords
[ö] - pronounced long [ö] as in ‘schön’ and short [ö] as in 'plötzlich'
Subject pronoun - represents the person, people or thing(s) doing the verb, e.g., I, we, they
Er - subject pronoun ‘he’ and ‘it’ for masculine nouns
Sie - subject pronoun ‘she’ and ‘it’ for feminine nouns
Es - subject pronoun ‘it’ for neuter nouns
Common misconception
'Er' and 'sie' only mean 'he' and 'she'.
Whilst 'er' and 'sie' do mean 'he' and 'she', they are also the masculine and neuter words for 'it'.
Equipment
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Some of our videos, including non-English language videos, do not have captions.
Starter quiz
6 Questions
mother
father
night
head
dark
problem
example
school
I am
you are
he is
she is
they are
der
die
das