Impersonal pronoun - 'es'

As well as being the neuter personal pronoun, es can be used impersonally in a general statement to mean ‘it’, just like in English, eg:

• es ist kalt - it’s cold
• es regnet - it’s raining
• es ist wichtig - it’s important
• es ist Montag - it’s Monday
• es ist vier Uhr - it’s four o’clock
• es ist unfair - it’s unfair

Impersonal pronoun - 'man'

There is another important impersonal pronoun - man - which uses the same part of the verb as er, sie, es (third person singular).

You use man when you are referring to no-one in particular and translate man as 'we', 'you' or 'one', eg:

• in Großbritannien fährt man links - we drive on the left in Britain
• in Deutschland fährt man rechts - you drive on the right in Germany
• man feiert Weihnachten am 24. Dezember - they celebrate Christmas on 24 December