Sie

See also: sie, šie, się, and si'e

German

Alternative forms

• -se, Se (rare, colloquial)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ziː/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophone: sieh
• Rhymes: -iː

Pronoun

Sie

1. you (polite; singular and plural)

   Was möchten Sie, Frau Wagner?

   What would you like to have, Mrs. Wagner?

Usage notes

• The German Sie expresses distance in the relation between two persons. It is not perfectly correct to say that it expresses respect. Sie has never been used to address gods and saints. Towards parents it was only briefly used during the 18th century by some of the upper classes. (In both of these cases, however, Ihr was formerly possible alongside du.) Even royal highnesses used to be addressed as du, albeit not personally but in songs and poems (compare the famous Heil dir im Siegerkranz).
• Sie is identical in form to the third person plural pronoun sie (“they”) and takes the same verb form. The "polite" Sie is distinguished in writing by capitalization. The only form which is not capitalized is the reflexive sich. When addressing a person with Sie, one generally needs to replace the third person plural pronoun with the demonstrative die ("those ones") to avoid confusion: Wissen Sie, was die zu mir gesagt haben? − “Do you know what they said to me?”

Inflection

German personal pronouns

		nominative	accusative	genitive	dative	possessive
1st person singular		ich	mich	meiner († mein)	mir	mein
2nd person singular (familiar)1		du (-e)	dich	deiner († dein)	dir	dein
3rd person singular	m	er	ihn	seiner († sein)	ihm	sein
	f	sie		ihrer	ihr
	n	es		seiner († sein)	ihm	sein
1st person plural		wir (mir)	uns	unser	uns	unser
2nd person plural (familiar)1		ihr	euch	euer	euch	euer
3rd person plural		sie		ihrer	ihnen	ihr
polite address	naturally: 2nd person sg. or pl.; grammatically: 2nd person pl.	Ihr	Euch	Euer	Euch	Euer
	naturally: 2nd person sg. or pl.; grammatically: 3rd person pl.	Sie		Ihrer	Ihnen	Ihr

¹Often capitalized, especially in letters

• The genitive case Ihrer is more and more rarely used in modern German.
• The genitive case Ihrer does not express ownership, so it must not be confused with the possessive pronoun Ihr, which is declined by gender, singular/plural and case.

Derived terms

• siezen