GermanFluent

A1 · Personal pronouns

mir, dir, ihm

to me, to you, to him: the person who gets something

FormVerb (Position 2) + Dativpronomen (mir / dir / ihm) + Akkusativobjekt

Meaning and usage

The dative pronouns mir, dir and ihm name the person who receives something or the person something is done for. mir is the speaker, dir is one person you know well, and ihm is one male person. When the thing is a noun, the dative pronoun comes first: Ich gebe ihm das Buch.

Some verbs and phrases always take the dative, for example helfen, danken, gefallen and the question Wie geht es dir?. Learners often use the accusative here and say Ich helfe mich or Wie geht es dich?. The dative forms are the ones German needs.

Examples 5

Test yourself

  1. 1 Sprachbausteine

    Mein Bruder hat Geburtstag. Ich schenke ein Buch.

    Show answer

    Correct answer: ihm

    The person who gets the book is mein Bruder, one male person, and schenken puts that person in the dative: ihm.

    • ihn is the accusative, but the person who gets something is in the dative.
    • ihr is the dative for a woman, but the brother is male.
    • er is the nominative, and the subject here is ich.

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.