B1 · Pronouns
The many jobs of es
Es regnet. Es gibt. Es ist mir kalt.
A subject that stands for nothing, a placeholder that disappears, and the one construction every learner needs: es gibt.
German es does four different jobs, and only the first is the ordinary one. It can replace a neuter noun — Das Buch? Ich habe es — and that use behaves like any other pronoun.
The other three are stranger. With weather and time verbs it is a subject that refers to nothing at all: Es regnet, Es ist spät. In es gibt it introduces existence and takes the accusative — Es gibt einen Grund, not "ein Grund" — which is the single most useful fixed phrase in the language and also the one most often got wrong.
And as a placeholder it holds the first position open when nothing else wants it, then vanishes the moment something else moves in: Es kamen viele Gäste becomes Gestern kamen viele Gäste, with no es left. That disappearance is what marks it as a placeholder rather than a subject.
Die Form
| pronoun | Das Auto? Ich sehe es. |
| weather, time | Es schneit. Es ist acht Uhr. |
| es gibt + accusative | Es gibt hier keinen Bahnhof. |
| placeholder | Es fehlt ein Stuhl. |
| with feelings, dative | Mir ist kalt. |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
es gibt is followed by the accusative, singular or plural.
Es gibt einen Weg.There is a way.
es gibt never changes for number: it is gibt even with a plural.
Es gibt viele Möglichkeiten.There are many possibilities.
The placeholder es disappears when something else takes first position.
Es kamen drei Leute. — Gestern kamen drei Leute.Three people came. — Three people came yesterday.
Weather and time verbs keep es in every position.
Heute regnet es.It is raining today.
Genauer hingesehen
The difference between es gibt and es ist
Es gibt states that something exists somewhere in general: In dieser Stadt gibt es zwei Museen. Es ist or es sind locates something specific: Es sind noch zwei Plätze frei. English uses "there is" for both, so the split has to be learned.
The rough test is whether the sentence answers "does this exist here" or "how many of these are currently in this place". The first is es gibt and the second is usually es ist or a plain sentence with the noun as subject.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
a feeling is described
German often uses the dative and drops es when something else comes first.
Mir ist kalt.I am cold.
The person is not the subject of the feeling but the one it happens to.
-
es refers forward to a whole clause
it announces what is coming.
Es ist klar, dass wir warten müssen.It is clear that we have to wait.
The clause is too heavy for the first position, so es holds the place and the content follows.
Woran man es erkennt
- es gibt
- es ist
- es wird
- es geht
- es
Beispielsätze
Es gibt hier ein gutes Restaurant.There is a good restaurant here.
Es hat die ganze Nacht geregnet.It rained all night.
Wie geht es dir?How are you?
Es tut mir leid.I am sorry.
Es freut mich, Sie kennenzulernen.Pleased to meet you.
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
Es gibt keinen Zucker mehr.There is no sugar left.
Es wird kalt.It is getting cold.
Es klingelt.The doorbell is ringing.
Gibt es hier ein WLAN?Is there wifi here?
Es lohnt sich nicht.It is not worth it.
Es geht um Geld.It is a question of money.
Besonderheiten (2)
-
es geht is a whole vocabulary of its own
<z>Wie geht es dir</z> is health, <z>Es geht um</z> is subject matter, <z>Es geht nicht</z> is impossibility, and plain <z>Es geht</z> as an answer means "so-so". None of them is predictable from the verb, and all four are heard daily.
-
Dropping the placeholder is not optional
Once another element occupies the first position, the placeholder <z>es</z> must go: "Gestern es kamen drei Leute" is not merely clumsy but wrong. This is a clean way to see that German allows exactly one element before the verb.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
Two mistakes hide in this one phrase. The verb never agrees with what follows — it is gibt whether one thing exists or a hundred, because the grammatical subject is es and what follows is the object. And that object is accusative, so a masculine noun changes: es gibt einen Grund, never "ein Grund". English "there is / there are" trains exactly the wrong instinct here.
es gibt takes an object, so it never becomes es geben.
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