"Sie haben Hemden."
Translation:They have shirts.
94 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Exactly, I am confused as well. Sie haben Hemden could mean either 'they' or '(f.) you'. Since 'Sie' begins the sentence could it not be 'they' disguised by the capitalization? If you look at the verb it would be 'hat' if 'Sie' was 'she', but it's clearly not, so how do you distinguish between 'you' and 'they'? Is this simply based on context?
The only way to know is to see how the verb is conjugated if it was sie (singular) the verb would be: Sie hat Hemden. Haben (to have) is irregular The conjugation for haben is Ich habe Du hast sie/er/es hat Wir haben Ihr habt Sie haben (Sie meaning they) The case of most verbs (regular) the conjugation goes: Gehen for example Ich gehe (ends with a e) Du gehst (ends with st) sie/er/es geht (ends with t) Wir gehen (is the full verb or the infinitive) Ihr geht (ends with t) Sie gehen (Sie that means they also takes the infinitive) Hope that helps
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I was also confused by this problem for a long time, until I realised that Germans sometimes have the same problem:
In a film I watched, a bank manager is woken in the middle of the night by knocking at his door. He opens it to find policemen standing outside. "Sie haben die Bank ausgeraubt" says one of them.
The bank manager, confused and shocked, responds "Wer? Ich?!"
"Nein" answers the policeman. "Drei Männer, sie haben die Bank ausgeraubt."...
After that, I felt better about being confused sometimes :-)
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According to the conjugated verb.
Sie hat ... = She has ...
Sie haben = They/you (formal) have ...
1248
Sie is a homonym - and annoying since all 3 "sie's" are pronouns (sie/she, Sie/you(formal), sie/they). But it's like bear (the animal) and bear (the verb (to carry/support)). You have to look at the words around it to know which they want.
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When the automated voice pronounced this, the "en" at the end of "Hemden" is kinda hard to hear. The first time it came up I got it wrong because I heard "Hemd" instead of "Hemden."
I think duo made mistake here - 'Sie' could mean formal 'you' but the app itself translates it as 'they' (when you click on Sie). Grammatically their translation is correct but as a system there's mistaken. Sie shall be given 'you' as an option when you tapp on translation and it shall accept 'they".
No. That has nothing to do with it, unfortunately. There are five different plural forms, and one just has to learn them. That is, das Buch is neuter, and also a one-syllable noun, yet the plural of das Buch is die Bücher. And the plural of das Pferd is die Pferde. So, there’s no way to predict which plural form a noun will take.