1. Personal Pronouns & the Verb Sein

2. Personal Pronouns Singular Pronouns Plural Pronouns ich I
du you (familiar)
er he/it
sie she/it
es it
Sie you (formal)
*note the difference in sie and Sie.
wir we
ihr you (familiar) “y’all”
sie they
Sie you (formal)
*the words for she and they are the same. You will be able to tell which one someone means by the verb form being used.

3. Verb Forms
Conjugation is changing the form of a verb to agree with its subject.
In English, most verbs have two forms.
For example, I live, but he lives.
In German, it will be common to see several different verb forms because there are more possibilities for verb endings, and there are also more options for subject pronouns than there are in English.

4. Sein = to be The first verb that we will tackle conjugating is SEIN.
SEIN is an irregular verb in German. It does not follow the same rules for verb conjugation that other verbs will. (More on this later)
TO BE is an irregular verb in English also, and the English forms with their subjects in the present tense are as follows:
I am
you are
he/she/it is
we are
they are
Notice how none of the underlined verbs look like “to be”

5. Jetzt auf Deutsch Singular Forms Plural Forms ich bin du bist er ist
sie ist
es ist
Sie sind (formal you, 1 person)
wir sind
ihr seid
sie sind
Sie sind (formal you, 2+ people)

6. Sein
Because SEIN is an irregular verb, you will have to just memorize its forms.
Think how often you use this verb in English…. a lot, right? That’s why this is “Verb Nummer eins” for us when learning German.

7. Try a few… We are tired. I am 15 years old. Where are you? Is he here?
They are children.
Wir sind müde.
Ich bin fünfzehn Jahre alt.
Wo bist du? Wo sind Sie? Wo seid ihr?
Ist er hier?
Sie sind Kinder.