B1 · Pronouns · about 4 minutes
The pronoun es and its uses
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.
Do you know this already?
“New to me”: the explanation first, then practice. “Test myself”: 2 short questions – get at least two right and you go straight to the harder exercises.
Words you will need4
They appear in this topic’s examples and exercises and are new at this point on the learning path.
- das Restaurantrestaurant
- leidsorry (es tut mir leid)
- sich kennenlernento get to know each other
- der Grundreason
Understand
Rememberes gibt takes an object, so it never becomes es geben.
- Signal words
- es gibt
- es ist
- es wird
- es geht
- es
The form
The patterns at a glance
Each row first says when or what the pattern is used for, then gives an example in German.
negation
| 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. |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
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.
Example sentences
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?
8 more example sentences
Es tut mir leid.I am sorry.
Es freut mich, Sie kennenzulernen.Pleased to meet you.
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.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
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.
Quick check
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Practise
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The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
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.
A closer look
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.
Exceptions and special cases2
Exception
When a feeling is described
then German often uses the dative and drops es when something else comes first.
Mir ist kalt.I am cold.
Why? The person is not the subject of the feeling but the one it happens to.
Exception
When es refers forward to a whole clause
then it announces what is coming.
Es ist klar, dass wir warten müssen.It is clear that we have to wait.
Why? The clause is too heavy for the first position, so es holds the place and the content follows.
Worth knowing2
Worth knowing
es geht is a whole vocabulary of its own
Wie geht es dir is health, Es geht um is subject matter, Es geht nicht is impossibility, and plain Es geht as an answer means "so-so". None of them is predictable from the verb, and all four are heard daily.
Worth knowing
Dropping the placeholder is not optional
Once another element occupies the first position, the placeholder es 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.
The verbs on this page, in every form: geben · sein · kommen · regnen · haben · müssen · gehen · warten