German Pronoun Practice Generator

Er sees him, and English keeps the exact same word for him whether it's a direct object or an indirect one. German doesn't. Him splits into ihn for the accusative, the direct object, and ihm for the dative, the indirect object, and a learner who's never had to make that distinction in English guesses wrong close to half the time. Her runs into the same problem, sie in the accusative, ihr in the dative, and both look nothing like the English word they're standing in for.

Nominative marks the subject, ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, sie or the formal Sie. Accusative marks the direct object, mich, dich, ihn, sie, es, uns, euch, sie or Sie. Dative marks the indirect object, mir, dir, ihm, ihr, ihm, uns, euch, ihnen or Ihnen. First and second person singular change the most, ich to mich to mir, du to dich to dir, while third person plural and the formal Sie barely shift shape between cases at all.

Set [PRONOUN_CONTEXT?] to a specific sentence or situation you want pronouns drilled in, or leave it blank and I'll build a mixed set of everyday sentences.

Focus is [CASE_FOCUS:select:Nominative only,Accusative only,Dative only,Mixed drill across all three].

I need [DRILL_COUNT:number:10-40] prompts at [CEFR_LEVEL:select:A1 (beginner),A2 (elementary),B1 (intermediate)].

For every prompt, build a short sentence with an English pronoun that needs replacing, and ask for the correct German pronoun in context, not the pronoun in isolation, since case only makes sense attached to what the pronoun is doing in that specific sentence. When a prompt tests him or her, note whether the correct German answer is the accusative or dative form and explain it with the classic to-test, if to could sit in front of the English pronoun without changing the meaning, the German answer is dative.

Close by drilling third person singular hardest if the mixed focus is chosen, since ihn, ihm, sie, and ihr are the four forms most likely to get crossed with each other, while first and second person singular, though they change shape completely between cases, rarely get confused with the wrong case once a learner has seen the pattern once.