114 D-2: Accusative of personal pronouns

Accusative of personal pronouns

Just line other nouns that can be the ‘doer’ of ‘the target’ (aka ‘the affected one’, direct object of Accusative), words referring to people (pronouns), such as I, you, he, she, it, we and so on, can also be the ‘actors’ or the ‘targets’. English does this as well, e.g.: 

  • I/me: I have her number. She called me yesterday.
  • he/him: He is nice. I see him.

The German pronouns you learned so far are all in the nominative case (the ‘doer’ case):

  • ich = I
  • du = you
  • er = he
  • sie = she
  • es = it
  • wir = we
  • ihr = you all
  • sie = they
  • Sie = You

About half of them stay the same in the Accusative case, but some do change when they are a direct object (something is done to them directly). 

Nominative

Accusative

ich

mich

du

dich

er

ihn

wir

uns

ihr

euch

All the other pronouns do not change and you don’t have to memorize them! 

Nominative

Accusative

es

es

sie

sie

Sie

Sie

Watch out, the pronoun sie (she) and sie (they) change in English when they are ‘targets’ (she her, they them), but not in German (sie sie):

I see her = Ich sehe sie (NOT ‘ich sehe ihr‘)

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