GermanFluent

A1 · Personal pronouns

mich, dich, ihn

me, you, him as the one acted on

FormSubjekt + Verb + mich / dich / ihn (Akkusativobjekt)

Meaning and usage

mich, dich and ihn are the forms you use when the person is the one something is done to. They stand for ich, du and er. The verb decides this: sehen, kennen, abholen and treffen take the accusative, so you say Ich sehe dich and Ich treffe ihn.

These forms usually come after the verb, and after the subject if the subject is a pronoun. Learners often keep the subject form and say Ich sehe du or Ich kenne er. German needs the accusative here, so Ich sehe dich and Ich kenne ihn are the correct sentences.

Examples 5

Test yourself

  1. 1 Sprachbausteine

    Das ist mein Bruder Paul. Ich sehe heute im Kurs.

    Show answer

    Correct answer: ihn

    ihn is the accusative form of er, and the first sentence names Paul, a man, as the person seen. er is the subject form, ihm is the dative, and mich would mean the speaker sees himself.

    • mich Accusative of ich, which would mean the speaker sees himself, not Paul.
    • er Subject form, so it cannot be the object of sehen.
    • ihm Dative form, but sehen takes the accusative.

In this topic: Personal pronouns

  1. ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, sie I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they
  2. du / Sie Polite you, capitalised Sie with the verb in the -en form
  3. der Tisch → er er, sie, es replace a thing by its gender
  4. mich, dich, ihn me, you, him as the one acted on
  5. mir, dir, ihm to me, to you, to him: the person who gets something
  6. helfen, gefallen + Dativ help, please, belong to, taste, thank, answer + dative
  7. es gibt + Akkusativ there is, there are
  8. Ich gebe es dir. When both objects are pronouns, the accusative comes first

Example sentences from Tatoeba, used under CC BY 2.0 FR. See sources.