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- Topic: German >
- "Sie liest die Zeitung."
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Sie means she and they right? If so im confused to know when is "she" and when is they. Pliz and thank u
it depends on the ending of the verb. If it ends with an "-en", sie is they. And if it ends with a "-t", it's "she". Hope it helped :)
To expand on the other answers, it depends on the structure of the sentence (as mentioned). For instance, say you have "Sie liest eine Zeitung." (She is reading a newspaper.) versus "Sie lesen eine Zeitung." (They are reading a newspaper). In instances where you're wondering whether it's she or they, look to the other words (typically the verb) in the sentence for clues. I understand how this is challenging for you, because it really confused me at first too. I remember I had begun to think I was getting it all figured out and then suddenly the she/they issue confronted me and I suddenly started losing faith in myself. Just be patient with yourself, practice and things like this (and others) will come with time and eventually be second nature.
With they, as you're talking about a group of people, you use lesen while with she you use liest
Dude, it depends on the verb form. If there is "liest" then SHE but if "lesen" then THEY.
You can but they want you to lern that sie is used for they that she and her.
Does anyone know the i before e rules for German? I keep losing hearts because I flip the ei or the ie. I barely get I before e right in English (facepalm)
'Ei' is a diphthong - you pronounce both letters, like in 'hi', 'rye', 'pie' or 'Zeitung'. The 'e' in 'ie' indicates that this 'i' is a long vowel, but it is not pronounced itself. It sounds like 'see' or 'bee'.
An example: 'sie' (= 'she') is pronounced [ziː] (a bit like the American pronunciation of the letter Z, I think). If you now were to spell it 'sei', it would not only have a different meaning (the imperative of 'sein' = 'to be'), it also would be pronounced [zaɪ̯] (somewhat like the last syllable of 'bonsai').
No sorry, "Sie liest den Zeitung." is incorrect. Zeitung is a feminine word and therefore accompanied by "die". You could say: "Sie liest den Zeitungsartikel" - "She reads the newspaper article". However, this would change the actual sense.
So die is for feminine words, and den is for gender neutral words? Or is it for masculine words?
The initial question was related to an accusative. In this case, you are not completely right.
Asking the accusative question, you get:
Wen oder was lese ich? - Die Zeitung (feminine)
Wen oder was fahre ich? - Das Auto (neutral)
Wen oder was fange ich? - Den Ball (masculine)
I don't understand why use the capitalized form "Sie" to indicate she??? As I know the correct form to indicate she is the not capitalized form "sie"........maybe an error of the sentence?
Because its the first word in the sentence but now, you need to know how the verb changes to let you know who is doing the action. If it's he, she, it, etc.
because in German (die) Zeitung is feminine, in accusative case it's also "die"
for du and er/sie/es the form remains the same - liest. It's an irregular verb, and this is a rule :) (I'm not sure I'll be able to translate the rule into English right now, sorry :()
Die is used for feminine nouns/plural nouns, whereas das is used for neuter nouns.
That's not proper English, we don't say 'She read the newspaper' we say that she READS it.
It would be "She is reading the newspaper" since the sentence uses 'die' instead of 'eine' here. Otherwise, if you use 'the' it would be accepted.
For subjects such as es/er/sie you use liest, you use lest when 'ihr' is the subject.
In this context, "sie" capitalized at the beginning of the sentence could be either "she" or "They"
Not necessarily, you have to pay attention to the verb form to figure out what the subject is. Since the verb is 'liest' it must be 'she', but if it were 'lesen' then it would either be you (formal) or they.
The statement is "Sie liest die Zeitung", 'She reads the newspaper'. If it was A newspaper it would be 'Sie liest eine Zeitung', 'eine' because Zeitung is feminine (die/eine Zeitung).
It's also not good English. It would be 'she's reading 'a' or 'the' newspaper'.
I'm finding this repetitiveness incredibly boring, same with previously "die Frau, Der Mann"... It's too much and gets on my nerves. Isn't it possibly to add a little more variation or development like I've noticed in other languages?
