KS3 · German · Year 8
English and German schools: pronouns 'uns' and 'ihnen'
Last year or this year: present and perfect tenses
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IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/9
Your learning goal
I can use object pronouns to talk about school.
1 of 9
English and German schools: pronouns 'uns' and 'ihnen': slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can use object pronouns to talk about school.
Key learning points
- Practising vocabulary, both known and new, is important for building language knowledge.
- Starting school in Germany is different from a child’s first day at school in England.
- Many German verbs are followed by direct objects or pronouns; two plural direct object pronouns are ‘uns' and 'sie'.
- Some German verbs use indirect or dative objects; two plural indirect object pronouns are 'uns' and 'ihnen'.
- Sometimes indirect object pronouns mean ‘to us’, ‘to them’, etc., but they can just mean ‘us’, ‘them’.
Words to know
- dative
- case used for the indirect object in a sentence and after a dative verb or preposition
- indirect object pronoun
- replaces the person, people or thing(s) that the verb action is done to, when the action is to me, for you, to them, also called dative pronoun
Common mistakes
Object pronouns like me, him, they are always the same in German, like English.
German object pronouns can be direct or indirect; they change their spelling depending on the case needed, e.g. direct object pronoun 'dich' - you is accusative; indirect object pronoun 'dir' - you is dative. The case is often determined by the verb.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Teachers may wish to explore the first day at school in greater depth with students. There are many videos available online that show what children's experience in Germany is like and this can lead into interesting cultural discussion.