Describing People and Things: Relativsätze

A relative clause (Relativsatz) answers “which one?” or “who exactly?”: Der Mann, den ich kenne, ist nett. Without it you would need two short sentences: Der Mann ist nett. Ich kenne ihn. At B1 this is how you describe a person, a thing or a place in a single sentence: at the lost-property office, in a flat ad, in a job interview and in the speaking part of an exam.

The rule of this lesson in one line: the relative pronoun takes its gender and number from the word it refers to, and its case from the role it plays inside the clause. Everything else follows from that line. You will build three habits: find the reference word, decide its role, send the verb to the end. After that come Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, Genitiv, prepositions and the special case of was.

Mira left her backpack on the bus yesterday and has come to the Fundbüro, the lost-property office. The clerk asks her to describe it, and almost every line is built on a Relativsatz. Listen and read the translations under each line.

What to notice: in every relative clause the verb comes last: vergessen habe, liegt, ist, arbeiten muss, abgegeben hat. A comma and the relative pronoun always come before it.

Two sentences, Der Mann ist nett. and Ich kenne den Mann., merge into one in three steps.

A clause in the middle of a sentence is closed by a second comma. The conjugated verb stands last, as after weil and dass. The easiest way to find the case is to substitute: replace the relative pronoun with a personal pronoun and see what you get. Ich kenne ihn is Akkusativ, so den. Er wohnt dort is Nominativ, so der.

Mistake number one: taking the case from the reference word. Mann is nominative in the main clause, but inside the relative clause it is the object, so den and not der.

Each tile is one case. Inside it the forms go in the order masculine, neuter, feminine, plural. Pick the case by the role in the clause and the form by the reference word.

The forms match the definite article except in two places: Dativ plural is denen (not den) and the whole Genitiv is dessen and deren. Learn denen, dessen and deren as separate facts, there is no logic to derive them from. The rest you already know from the articles.

Dativ is needed when the reference word is the person or thing something is given, told or done to, or when the verb takes Dativ: helfen, gehören, danken, vertrauen, gefallen. Substitution check: ich helfe ihr, es gehört ihm, ich erkläre ihnen.

The trap is the plural: the form is denen, not den. Wrong: Die Kinder, den ich helfe. Right: Die Kinder, denen ich helfe. Den is the article form (den Kindern), but the relative pronoun in the Dativ plural is different: denen.

Genitiv shows possession: der Hund des Nachbarn turns into der Nachbar, dessen Hund …. Two forms: dessen for masculine and neuter, deren for feminine and plural.

Two things that trip learners up. First: the form depends on the gender of the owner, not of the thing. Die Frau, deren Auto: Frau is feminine, so deren, even though Auto is neuter. Second: there is no article after dessen and deren. Dessen Auto is right, dessen das Auto is wrong.

Genitiv in relative clauses is typical of written German. Ownership can sometimes be expressed with the verb gehören instead: Der Mann, dem das Auto gehört. That is a different construction (Dativ with gehören), not a replacement for dessen, and it only works where the meaning is really “belongs to”.

The preposition stands in front of the relative pronoun, at the start of the clause. The preposition (or the verb it belongs to) sets the case. Gender and number still come from the reference word.

The two-way prepositions in, auf, an, über and others take Dativ for “where?” and Akkusativ for “where to?”. Inside a relative clause the choice is the same: in der ich wohne (where?), in das ich gehe (where to?). Prepositions that come with a verb are learned together with it: warten auf + Akkusativ, teilnehmen an + Dativ.

If the reference is not a specific noun but a word like alles, nichts, etwas, das or a whole idea, the relative word is was, not der, die, das.

For places, spoken German often uses wo: Die Stadt, wo ich wohne, ist groß. That is the colloquial variant; in writing and in an exam choose Die Stadt, in der ich wohne.

Five typical mistakes in Relativsätze. Each has a check: which case the word has inside the clause, whether an article follows dessen or deren, whether the verb stands last.

Three more habits for English speakers to unlearn. English can drop the pronoun: the film I saw. German never can: Der Film, den ich gesehen habe. English chooses who or which by person versus thing, German chooses by gender: der Mann, der …, but also der Tisch, der …. And English can leave the preposition at the end, the man I work with; German puts it before the pronoun: der Mann, mit dem ich arbeite.

In exams and in real life, the word you need sometimes simply does not come. A Relativsatz rescues you: describe the thing by what it does or what it is for. The listener usually supplies the word.

Task: describe three objects out loud

Give one sentence each for a fridge, an alarm clock and an umbrella. Start with Das ist ein Gerät … or Das ist etwas … and end with the verb. Model answers to compare:

Checklist: comma before the pronoun, the right gender for the reference word, case by role, verb last. Your version may differ from the model; that is fine as long as all four points hold.

You can describe a person, a thing or a place in one sentence and merge two short sentences into one with a Relativsatz. Three checks are enough for any relative clause:

1. Gender and number of the reference word: m., n., f. or pl.
2. Case by role inside the clause: substitute er / sie, ihn, ihm, ihr, ihnen, and for possession sein / ihr.
3. Comma, pronoun (with a preposition if needed), verb last, second comma.

Training: 30 exercises

To make the forms stick, do the training with 30 exercises: build the sentence and choose the pronoun, with an explanation after every answer. Start with the first tasks, they are easier, and the difficulty grows from there.