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Practise German personal pronouns with these free A1 exercises. You'll learn how to use ich, du, er, sie and other subject pronouns, then practise common accusative and dative forms such as mich, dich, mir and dir in everyday sentences.
Anna kommt heute. Anna bringt Kuchen mit. Anna bleibt bis acht Uhr.
That sounds a little repetitive, doesn't it?
With personal pronouns, we can replace Anna with sie and make our German sound much more natural.
But pronouns also change depending on their role in a sentence. That's why we say ich, mich and mir in different situations.
Grammar Recap: German Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns replace people or things we've already mentioned.
In German, their form depends on the grammatical case:
- Nominative: Who is doing something? (ich, du, er ...)
- Accusative: Who or what is directly affected? (mich, dich, ihn ...)
- Dative: Often used for the person receiving something or with verbs such as helfen. (mir, dir, ihm ...)
Here are the most important forms:
| Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er | ihn | ihm |
| sie | sie | ihr |
| es | es | ihm |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie | sie | ihnen |
| Sie | Sie | Ihnen |
Compare these three sentences:
Ich lerne Deutsch.
Er kennt mich.
Sie hilft mir.
The person is the same, but the pronoun changes depending on its role in the sentence.
Exercise 1: Choose the Subject Pronoun
Let's start with nominative pronouns: ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr and Sie.
Choose the pronoun that correctly replaces the person or thing in brackets.
Exercise 2: Accusative Personal Pronouns
Now let's practise pronouns used as direct objects.
For example, Ich kenne Anna becomes Ich kenne sie.
Choose the correct accusative pronoun to replace the noun in brackets.
Exercise 3: Dative Personal Pronouns
Some common German verbs take a dative object, including helfen (to help), danken (to thank) and gehören (to belong to).
Choose the correct dative pronoun in each sentence.
Exercise 4: Which Case Do You Need?
Now let's mix nominative, accusative and dative pronouns.
Read the whole sentence and type the correct form of the pronoun shown in brackets.
Exercise 5: Replace the Noun with a Pronoun
For the final exercise, rewrite each sentence by replacing the indicated noun or noun phrase with the correct personal pronoun.
Write the complete sentence. Pay attention to gender, case and word order.
The End
You've practised German personal pronouns in the nominative, accusative and dative, from replacing subjects to choosing the correct object pronouns.
Remember that the same person can have different pronoun forms depending on their role in a sentence: ich, mich, mir or du, dich, dir.
For more practice, explore our possessive pronouns exercises or our free German lessons.