When are parts of the body personal, and when not?

Question

I read the following in a description a patient's visit to the doctor.

Der Arzt schaut in ihre Augen, ihren Mund, und in die Ohren.

Why die Ohren but ihre Augen?

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 19 '20 at 06:14

17

This is just a variation to reduce repeating words. This also would be correct, but contains 3 times "ihre":

Der Arzt schaut in ihre Augen, ihren Mund und in ihre Ohren.

Another possibility is this:

Der Arzt schaut ihr in die Augen, den Mund und die Ohren.

But here the word ihr is not a possessive pronoun, but dativus commodi.

answered Oct 19 '20 at 06:14

Hubert Schölnast

4

In general, German uses articles instead of possessive pronouns for body parts much more frequently than English. There are a some fixed expressions,"take her by the hand, look her in the eye", but you "look in her ears", never "look her in the ears". – RDBury Oct 19 '20 at 10:26

1 Answers1