Should I use "er" or "es" here?
Let's say you were referring to a computer. Technically, computers, being inanimate objects, are biologically neuter. HOWEVER, in German, they're GRAMMATICALLY masculine. So, which pronoun do I use for it? "es" or "er"?

Question

Should I use "er" or "es" here?
Let's say you were referring to a computer.  Technically, computers, being inanimate objects, are biologically neuter.  HOWEVER, in German, they're GRAMMATICALLY masculine.  So, which pronoun do I use for it?  "es" or "er"?

Answer

You just use 'er' - the grammatical gender decides.

One word that is not quite so easy to handle is 'das Mädchen'  (the girl)  - you can go on with 'es' or with 'sie' depending on what age she is. In most cases you will prefer 'sie' with a grown-up girl, and 'es' with a girl of three years, but sometimes it will be a difficult decision to make. No such problems with masculine and neuter nouns.

Answer

Er. After all that's just what "grammatically masculine" means: that masculine articles and pronouns are used.

Answer

We use the grammatical gender. It wouldn't make much sense to specify a grammatical gender if we didn't use it.

"Wem gehört dieser Computer? Er gefällt mir sehr gut." is correct.
"Wem gehört dieses Computer? Es gefällt mir sehr gut." is wrong.

Answers · 3

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