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- "Es geht ihr gut."
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Yes, it's an expression and it's very common.
"Es geht ihr gut" - literally this means something like 'It goes good for her'
It's a way of asking or talking about health or mood. "Wie geht es dir?" means "How are you" - you could answer "Es geht mir gut" meaning "I'm fine" or "I'm well".
The structure is 'Es geht' + dative pronoun (Not sure if you will have learnt all of these yet, but they are mir, dir, ihm, ihr, euch, uns, Ihnen, ihnen) followed by the adjective you want to use.
Yes, we haven't learned the dative pronouns yet. No "mir" "dir" "ihr", etc etc…. So, that's the problem for all of us. We had no idea (and still really don't) that "ihr" at any point was a reference to "her". Danke for the explanation.
exactly.. I learned Deutsch before, but the thing is that I do have a little bit of a background (and I do not remember all). Here you just try to coop with it. I wonder how beginners do, because it is not easy whatsoever.
How about a general "Es geht gut", is that a passable thing to say, or does it HAVE to have a pronoun?
Yes, that would work. I think it's better to include the pronoun if you are talking generally about how things are going for someone, but you would use just es geht gut if you are talking about how well something is going e.g. Wie geht das Geschäft? (How's business?) => Es geht gut.
Also, it's quite common to hear this phrase without the pronouns in informal speech:
e.g. Wie geht's? - Gut, danke.
This is just an abbreviation of the full phrase Wie geht es dir?, and has the same meaning.
As we haven't learnt these dative pronouns I can't understand how to translate them? Are they equal to "me, you, him, her, us, them"?
but then we are in a refslexive sentence it is like saying i wash myself. they should have it at least explained
Hey, according to this there is a little mistake in the dative forms you gave. http://www.gramatica-alemana.es/gramatica/pronombres-personales.php
thank you very much for your explenation. It is to the point and very clear Now, can I say "Es geht gut fur mich?
I know we haven't been taught this yet, but if you mouse over the word and click on the 'explain' button, it clearly states the second meaning of ihr. :)
It also says "you" which makes it a little confusing if you haven't learned how this works first
If I'm not mistaken, "ihr" means "you all" in the nominativ. But it can also mean in "Ihre Auge sind schön" HER eyes are pretty. And it can mean "she" in dativ form. Again, I might be mistaken, I've taken 1 year worth of german lessons but it's still REALLY confusing.
"Impersonal verbs
Another type of construction in which what would be the subject of an English sentence is in the dative case in a German sentence are the so-called impersonal verbs. These are verbs in which the grammatical subject of the sentence is "es", a non-specific "it". We have met two of the most common impersonal verbs already:
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Es tut mir Leid. ("I'm sorry.")
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Wie geht es Ihnen? ("How are you?")
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Mir geht es gut. ("I'm very well.")"
It's interesting that you refer to dative verbs as impersonal. Because it feels like the speaker is taking a step back when they use this phrasing, like they're showing that it's just their impression and they're not completely certain that it's true:
Es tut mir Leid. ("I'm sorry.")
(Es) It (tut) seems to be that (mir) for me there is (Leid) sorrow.
Wie geht es Ihnen? ("How are you?")
(Wie) How (geht es) does it seem to go (ihnen) for you?
Mir geht es gut. ("I'm very well.")
(Mir) To me (geht) it seems to go (es) for things in general (gut) well.
And then for the original sentence:
Es geht ihr gut. ("She feels well.")
(Es geht) It seems to go (ihr) for her (gut) well.
Ihr is the dative form of she. You need to use it when dealing with reflexive verbs like 'fühlen', etc.
This is one such reflexive usage example:
Eg: Ich fühle mich gut/Ich fühle mich sehr besser (I feel good/ I feel much better)
You have no idea how much your example helped me. I read the sentence and heard it like ten times and couldn't get it. I got it correct just because of luck. Now, after reading your example, I compared the sentence to Spanish and understood better how to use this construction. I hope I can help some other people:
"Ich fühle mich gut" would be something like "Me siento -yo mismo- bien", or in English I think it would be something like "I feel -myself- good". It is like if you repeat or "double-emphasize" who is feeling good. So I think that "They feel good" should be "Es geht Ihnen gut". I hope somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.
This is the way I understood it works. However, as some people have said, we haven't studied dative forms, which is why we feel it is hard. But the good thing about the comments is that you can have a deeper understanding. Thanks, community!
You're welcome. Glad to be of use :)
A point to note though: 'ihnen' = they (not in caps)
A similar example for dative is:
Ich wasche. (I wash / am washing - could be anything)
Ich wasche mich. (I wash / am washing myself - I am taking a bath)
Thank you very much! Even though I'm not a native English speaker whenever I see an "i" I tend to capitalize it. Duolingo has corrected me many times because I tend to write "Ihr" and "Ich" even if they are in the middle of the sentence. Guess I should check my answer before pressing enter =).
And thanks again for the examples; they're really helpful.
When would you use ihr for her and when would you use sie? So far duolingo has mostly just used sie so throwing in the non capitalized ihr threw me off. What occasions would you use ihr instead of sie?
Though I agree with the folks who are frustrated not having learned about the dative and self-reflexive verbs, I suppose immersion approach means sometimes you hear stuff you haven't learned before and it makes you check the discussion or vow to remember it next time?
Doesn't 'ihr' mean you (pl)? What does one say if it the speaker wants to say 'He is feeling well'? What if the perspn's name is, say Chris, and the receiver of the statement doesn't know Chris? How would they know whether the speaker is indicating 'he' or 'she'?
He is feeling well : Er fühlt sich gut.
She is feeling well : Sie fühlt sich gut.
'Er' and 'Sie' are the indicators. In case you are confused to what 'Sie' stands for, the form of the verb is a good indicator.
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It seems to me that this could also mean, "It suits her well," as in clothing or a general situation. is that true?
