Die Demonstrativpronomen

The demonstrative pronouns are the words you use to point. Dieses Buch (this book). Den kenne ich (THAT one I know). Der war groß (he was tall, said about a man just mentioned). German has three families that share the work: dieser for what is near or just specified, jener for what is far or contrasted (now mostly literary), and the stressed der/die/das used as a strong-deictic pointer or as a casual back-reference replacing er/sie/es. Spoken German leans on the third family far more than textbooks suggest.

All three families decline across the four cases and three genders, and all three follow the endings of the definite article almost exactly. Once you have the article table from der-die-das-and-cases, the demonstrative tables come for free.

The dieser family

Dieser is the workhorse. It corresponds to English this and, in modern German, also covers most of the territory English speakers expect that to fill. The endings are the same as the definite article der/die/das/die.

Dieser works as both a determiner (before a noun) and a stand-alone pronoun. The endings are identical in both roles.

Dieses Buch gehört mir. (This book belongs to me. Determiner before Buch.) Welches möchten Sie? Dieses, bitte. (Which would you like? This one, please. Stand-alone pronoun.) Mit diesem Wagen fahre ich nicht. (I am not driving in this car. Dative after mit.) Der Autor dieses Buches ist berühmt. (The author of this book is famous. Genitive.)

The stand-alone use is what makes dieser a pronoun rather than just an adjective. Once the noun is established, you can drop it and let dieser carry the reference.

The jener family

Jener is the corresponding that, far in space or far in the past. It declines exactly like dieser.

The forms are intact in the grammar; the use is not. In modern spoken German, jener sounds archaic or literary. You will hear it from older speakers, in formal writing, in legal prose, and in nineteenth-century novels. A native speaker today, asked to point at the further of two books on the table, will say das da or das andere, not jenes.

The exception worth remembering: jener survives in the dieser … jener contrast inside formal writing.

Jene, die geblieben sind, hatten Glück. (Those who stayed had luck. Reads as marked literary.) Diese Theorie betont X, jene betont Y. (This theory emphasises X, that one emphasises Y. Common in academic prose.)

In speech, the contrast this one … that one is overwhelmingly handled by dieser … der, not dieser … jener. Dieses Buch ist gut, das ist langweilig (this book is good, that one is boring). The demonstrative pull of the second sentence is carried by stressed das, not jenes.

The stressed der/die/das

The third family is the most distinctively German. The definite article der/die/das doubles as a demonstrative pronoun when it stands alone and is stressed in speech. The forms are identical to the relative-pronoun table, including the long datives and genitives.

Two forms to flag: dative plural denen (not den) and the four genitive cells dessen/deren. These shapes only appear when the word is acting as a pronoun (demonstrative or relative). When der is a plain article in front of a noun, the dative plural goes back to den (den Männern). The longer forms exist precisely to disambiguate the standalone pronoun from the article.

In writing, the stressed and unstressed der look the same. Older texts sometimes capitalise the stressed pronoun (Der with a capital D inside a sentence) to mark the deictic emphasis, but the modern convention is lowercase. You hear the difference in speech, where the demonstrative der takes a strong stress.

Stressed der as emphatic pointer

When you want to say that one with emphasis, the stressed der sits at the front of the clause and carries the intonation peak.

Den kenne ich! (That one I know! Implication: the others I do not.) Die hat mir geholfen. (She is the one who helped me. Said about a woman just gestured to.) Dem traue ich nicht. (Him I do not trust. Dative after trauen.) Mit denen will ich nichts zu tun haben. (I want nothing to do with those people.)

This is identical in form to the relative pronoun, but here it stands alone in a main clause and takes stress. A relative den would be subordinate and unstressed: der Mann, den ich kenne (the man whom I know). The demonstrative den is the same word doing different syntactic work.

Stressed der as back-reference

The same family does another job that comes as a surprise to learners: it replaces er/sie/es as the standard back-referring pronoun in spoken German when the antecedent has just been mentioned. Textbooks teach er/sie/es as the neutral choice. Native speakers reach for der/die/das instead.

Hast du Peter gesehen? Ja, der ist gerade gegangen. (Have you seen Peter? Yes, he just left.) Wo ist Maria? Die ist im Garten. (Where is Maria? She is in the garden.) Was sagt der Chef dazu? Der weiß noch nichts. (What does the boss say? He does not know yet.)

The er/sie/es version of these sentences is grammatical but sounds slightly bookish. Er ist gerade gegangen and der ist gerade gegangen mean the same thing; the der version is what most native speakers actually say in casual conversation. The rule of thumb: when the noun has just been named, the next pronoun is often der/die/das rather than er/sie/es. When the antecedent is further away or the pronoun starts a sentence cold, er/sie/es takes over.

This usage is mostly spoken. In written German, er/sie/es still dominates. Recognising the spoken pattern matters because every Kafka dialogue, every page of contemporary fiction’s spoken passages, and every German podcast you listen to will use der this way.

The dieser … der contrast

For this one … that one, the spoken German default is dieser … der, not dieser … jener.

Dieses Hemd ist zu eng. Das passt besser. (This shirt is too tight. That one fits better.) Dieser Wein ist trocken, der ist süß. (This wine is dry, that one is sweet.) Diese hier oder die da? (This one here or that one there?)

The pattern uses adverbs of place (hier, da, dort) when the speaker needs to disambiguate. Diese hier (this one here) and die da (that one there) are how German points across a counter without lifting a finger.

The genitive demonstratives dessen/deren

The genitive forms of the der family are the one place where the demonstrative system clearly outlives the personal pronoun. Sein and ihr exist for personal-pronoun possession, but they are anchored to the subject of the clause. When you need an unambiguous that person’s, German uses dessen (his/its) or deren (her/their).

Sein Bruder und dessen Frau. (His brother and that one’s wife. The wife belongs to the brother, not to the original his.) Sein Bruder und seine Frau. (His brother and his wife. The wife belongs to the original his.)

This distinction is not optional in careful prose. Seine Frau in the first sentence would mean the speaker’s own wife, not the brother’s. Dessen Frau anchors the possession to the most recently mentioned masculine antecedent.

Maria und deren Tochter. (Maria and her (Maria’s) daughter.) Die Studenten und deren Professoren. (The students and their (the students’) professors.)

The same logic applies to deren for feminine and plural antecedents. The form is rare in speech but lives on in writing because nothing else does the same disambiguation work.

The selber and selbst intensifier

The intensifiers selbst and selber often pair with demonstratives or personal pronouns to mean itself, himself, the very one. They do not decline.

Der Mann selbst hat es gesagt. (The man himself said it.) Ich selbst war nicht dort. (I myself was not there.) Diese selbst sind das Problem. (These very ones are the problem.)

Selber is the casual spoken variant; selbst is neutral and acceptable everywhere. Both follow the noun or pronoun they intensify. They are not reflexives (sich) and they are not the adverb selbst meaning even (selbst der Chef war da = even the boss was there), which sits before the word it intensifies.

What you don’t need to do

You do not need to use jener in speech. It will mark you as either a literature student or a stage actor. Stick with dieser … der for this one … that one. Jener is for reading, not producing.

You do not need to choose between dieser and der every time you point. They overlap. Dieses Buch hier and das Buch hier both work. The dieser version is slightly more emphatic; the das version is the lower-effort default. Either is correct.

You do not need to memorise the genitive dessen/deren before B2. They are recognition-only at first. When you read Werther or Kafka and see dessen Bruder, you should be able to parse it. You do not need to produce it spontaneously until your written German is sophisticated enough to need the disambiguation.

You do not need to capitalise stressed Der/Die/Das in your own writing. The capital was a nineteenth-century convention. Modern editions of Goethe sometimes preserve it; modern original writing does not.

Common confusions

• Dieser is not always the right translation of English that. English splits this and that by distance; modern German leaves most of that work to dieser alone, and uses der with a place adverb (das da) when the contrast actually matters. Translating that book with jenes Buch will sound stilted.
• Stressed der and the relative pronoun look identical. Same forms, different jobs. The relative pronoun lives inside a subordinate clause and is unstressed. The demonstrative pronoun stands alone in a main clause and is stressed. Word order tells you which.
• Dem/denen vs. den as definite article. When der acts as a pronoun (demonstrative or relative), the dative plural is denen. When it is a plain article in front of a noun, the dative plural is den (den Männern). The longer form only appears when the pronoun stands alone.
• Dessen and seine mean different things. Sein Bruder und dessen Frau is not a synonym of sein Bruder und seine Frau. The first means the brother’s wife; the second means the speaker’s wife. German keeps the distinction; English collapses it as his.
• Spoken back-reference der is not rude. Beginners sometimes hear der hat gesagt… (he said…) and assume the pointed der is dismissive. It is not. It is the default casual pronoun. Er in the same slot would sound stiff in conversation.
• Dieser is not the same as the demonstrative adjective ce/cet/cette in French. French ce livre covers both this book and that book. German dieses Buch leans towards this. For a closer comparison see how French handles standalone celui/celle/ceux/celles in pronoms-demonstratifs, and notice that German is more relaxed about the distance distinction. Dieser carries most of the deictic load, with the stressed der family covering the contrastive slot.

Where you’ll meet it in the library

Demonstrative pronouns saturate German prose. The catalog books that drill specific patterns:

• Der Process (A2+). Kafka uses dieser/diese for cold pointing throughout. Diese Männer, dieser Beamte, dieses Gericht: the unnamed officials are categorised by demonstrative rather than by name. The novel is also a master class in the der einen … der andere contrast for distinguishing two anonymous figures in a crowd.
• Die Verwandlung (A2+). Once Gregor turns into a beetle, the family members become die Mutter, der Vater, die Schwester and then collapse into stressed der/die on every page of dialogue. Die hat das gesagt (she said that) is the dominant spoken pattern.
• Werther (B2). Goethe still uses jener as a live form. Jene Stunden (those hours), jener Tag (that day): the contrast with dieser Augenblick (this moment) carries the novel’s temporal architecture. Werther is the catalog text where a learner can see jener doing real work rather than archaic decoration.
• Faust (B2). The verse drama uses the full demonstrative range, including the genitive dessen/deren in tighter constructions than most prose allows. Goethe’s compressed lines depend on the demonstrative system to track antecedents across stanzas.
• Frankenstein (B2). The German translation of Shelley uses dieser heavily for the creature, who is rarely named. Dieses Wesen, diese Kreatur, jenes Geschöpf: the demonstrative does the work of distancing the narrator from the thing he made.
• Heidi (A1) and Grimms Märchen (A1). Children’s-register German leans on the simplest demonstratives: das for back-reference, dieses for what is in hand. A learner who reads twenty pages of Heidi will see the back-referring der/die/das used naturally in dialogue, with no archaic jener in sight.