Glottos · DE
← Course home

Lesson 25: Impersonal sentences — man, es, es gibt

Vocabulary: Weather

Completing this lesson will add to your overall progress:

VocabularyA1+4%A2+2%B1+0.5%
GrammarA1+3%A2+4%B1+0.9%

How to work with this lesson

  1. Read the rule — understand the logic (5 minutes)
  2. Translate the exercises in writing — check against the key
  3. Say it out loud — slowly, consciously, analyzing every construction
  4. Speed up — run the matrix until it flies out on autopilot

You can build sentences with subjects — ich, du, er, sie. But German has plenty of sentences where there's no real subject at all. "It's raining" — what's "it"? Nothing. Nobody. Today we crack these tricky constructions. This is the last lesson of Block 3 before the "Baron / Baronin" test — show that A2 is yours.

Part 1: man — the impersonal "you / one / people in general"

In English you can say: "You can't park here." Who's "you"? Nobody specific. Anyone. People in general. English also has the formal "one doesn't say such things" — sounds old-fashioned today, but still alive.

German has a dedicated word for this: man.

man = one / you / people in general Man spricht hier Deutsch. — You/they/people speak German here. Man muss jeden Tag üben. — One has to / you have to practice every day.

Cognate hook: German man and English one both come from the same root meaning "person" — it's the same root as in man-kind, German Mann. But here, man is genderless and impersonal.

man ALWAYS takes the er/sie/es form of the verb. Man spricht. Man muss. Man könnte. No exceptions.

Don't mix up: man (impersonal, one n) and Mann (man = male person, two n's, capitalized).

Part 2: es — the dummy subject

German sentences can't function without a subject. Even when there's nothing to be a subject, Germans plug in es as a placeholder. Three cases:

1. Weather and natural phenomena:

GermanEnglishCognate hook
Es regnetIt's rainingregnen ≈ rain
Es schneitIt's snowingSchnee ≈ snow!
Es donnertIt's thunderingdonnern ≈ thunder!
Es ist windigIt's windyWind = wind (identical!)
Es ist kaltIt's coldkalt ≈ cold
Es ist heißIt's hotheiß ≈ hot

Notice: English does exactly the same thing: "It is raining." What's "it"? Nothing. The weather. You already do this in English — German is no different. The only thing to learn is the German verb.

2. Feelings and states: Es ist spät (it's late), Es tut mir leid (I'm sorry, lit. "it does me sorrow"), Wie geht es dir? (How are you?, lit. "How goes it to-you?")

3. Evaluations: Es ist wichtig (it's important), Es ist schön (it's nice/beautiful)

In all these cases es can't be translated as a meaningful "it". It just holds the subject slot. German hates empty syntax.

Part 3: es gibt — "there is / there are"

This is a construction you'll use every day. Es gibt = "there is", "there are", "there exist(s)".

Literally it means "it gives" — peculiar to German, but exactly the same idiom appears in French ("il y a") and Spanish ("hay"). English uses "there is/are" — equally weird if you think about it ("there" doesn't really refer to a place).

Es gibt einen Park. — There's a park. Es gibt viele Restaurants. — There are many restaurants. Gibt es hier ein Café? — Is there a café here?

Two facts: es gibt never changes form (no plural "es geben"). For questions, flip: Gibt es...? For negation: Es gibt kein/keine...

Trap! After "es gibt" you ALWAYS use Akkusativ. Always. No exceptions. Es gibt einen Fehler. (not ein Fehler) Es gibt einen Park. (not ein Park) Es gibt eine Bibliothek. (no visible change — feminine in Akk = Nom) Es gibt ein Kino. (no visible change — neuter in Akk = Nom)

Masculine is the trap. Ein → einen. Forget it and any German will spot the mistake.

Next up: First — the "Baron / Baronin" test! You've crossed all of Block 3. Prove that A2 belongs to you. After the test — Lesson 26: Past tense of modal verbs and the verb war. You start talking about the past — and that's a whole new level of freedom.

Lesson 25: Impersonal sentences — man, es, es gibt · Deutsch · Glottos Matrix