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I need some help/sources for grammar exercises regarding personal pronouns.
I don't know when to use Ihnen, ihr, ihrem, ihm and so on.

For example:

Ich habe Sie angerufen, um zu fragen, ob Sie Anstellung von Personal machen?

Is the first "Sie" correct?

Timeea Augustin
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    Your question is very general and the use of personal pronouns is documented very well on the Internet. Try reading the full article and then maybe you can come back with a more specific question. –  Jul 28 '14 at 13:43
  • Although if you do not have any access to German grammar explained in your native language, I will be happy to help. –  Jul 28 '14 at 13:47
  • Ok tank you...in my example "Ich habe Sie angerufen, um zu fragen, ob Sie Anstellung von Personal machen?" Is it correct the first "Sie" ?? thanks :) – Timeea Augustin Jul 28 '14 at 13:51
  • The first part of your sentence is correct. In order to keep a good portion of your sentence, I would do it so: Ich habe Sie angerufen, um zu fragen, ob Sie Personal einstellen. – hellcode Jul 28 '14 at 13:51
  • I am new here, and I don't know how is this site working....I wanted to go to chat but it didn't allow me because I don't have 20 points I think....how is this working? there so many things here..uff – Timeea Augustin Jul 28 '14 at 13:55
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    You can take the tour. –  Jul 28 '14 at 13:57
  • @TimeeaAugustin calm down... I suggest you take a small detour through the [help] after doing the tour Carlster suggested. You will find most of what you are looking for there. For all else you can ask questions on [meta] or [meta.se] for that mattter – Vogel612 Jul 28 '14 at 13:57
  • @hellcode I think you considered "Sie" als plural, otherwise your sentence is incorrect. In that case either "...ob sie Personal einstellen" or "...ob Sie Personal einstellt". – Em1 Jul 28 '14 at 14:21
  • @Em1: "Sie" is an address pronoun. Not plural. – hellcode Jul 28 '14 at 14:26
  • @hellcode Oh yes, right. My second example is indeed wrong. I confused it with Spanish where the third-person conjugation is identical to the address pronoun. Never mind. – Em1 Jul 28 '14 at 14:58

1 Answers1

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Personal pronouns like proper nouns follow the same inflection rules, as is nicely summarized in a table here: canoonet: Personal Pronouns

The polite form in adressing people actually is the 3rd person form capitalized. The same inflection rules apply.

Now we have to learn by heart which grammatical case goes with any verb. There are no generally valid rules for this. For anrufen it would be the accusative:

Ich rufe Sie (accustive) an.

The example you gave with anrufen is a nice example of inconsistent rules. The correct grammatical case is accusative case but you will also hear the dative in southern regions of Germany and in Switzerland (wrong: "Ich rufe Ihnen an").

With a verb taking another grammatical case (e.g. zustimmen taking the dative) you'd say:

Ich stimme Ihnen (dative) zu.

Also see the following related questions:

Glorfindel
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Takkat
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  • I think "zuhören" requires dative. For comparison: Ich höre seiner zu. In this case (and the previous) "Ihr/Ihrer" is a possessive pronoun (accusative/dative). –  Jul 28 '14 at 18:12
  • @Carlster Nun ja - ich frage nach wessen Vorlesung und nicht nach wem seine... aber mit dem Possesivpronomen hast Du natürlich recht. Vielleicht verwirrt das nur (von Antwort gelöscht). – Takkat Jul 28 '14 at 18:30
  • "Seiner" soll in meinem Gegenbeispiel der Genitiv von "er" sein. –  Jul 28 '14 at 18:39
  • Geeignete Beispiele gehen mit Verben einher, die den Genitiv verlangen, wie zB "gedenken". –  Jul 28 '14 at 18:42
  • Richtig ist: Ich höre ihm zu. Hier sieht man, dass "zuhören" mit dem Dativ kommt. Unpraktischerweise sind für weibliche Sachen der 2. & 3. Fall des Pos.pron. "Ihr" gleich. –  Jul 28 '14 at 18:51