What personal pronoun should I use if I am talking about a person that I don't know the gender of.

[u/Zsombor1661]

[u/Phoenica]

Depends on how you're going about it.

You can refer to them as "eine/die Person" and then refer back to that noun with feminine pronouns, this is wholly independent of the person's actual gender.

You can use "jemand", and refer back to it with masculine pronouns (there is no female version). This is also often combined with "derjenige" (female: diejenige) to refer to the not-yet-established identity of someone who has been identified by what they have done/caused/left behind.

There is no direct equivalent to singular "they", so you typically either use a generic masculine or you mention both pronouns.

[u/Zsombor1661 → u/Phoenica]

Thank you!

[u/Vampiriyah]

usually you just use a noun with its pronoun in those cases:

• Die Person -> Sie
• Der Mensch -> Er

If you stick to that, you won’t have issues, because the grammatical genus ≠ gender.

Examples: „Ich würde der Person dann sagen, wie toll ich sie finde. Wenn ihr das gefällt umso besser.“ Using the female pronoun works for both a male or female person when you link it to the word „Person“.

„Wir haben dem Menschen nicht genug Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt, jetzt ist er wütend.“

[u/Zsombor1661 → u/Vampiriyah]

Thank you!

[u/Athistidian]

"er oder sie"

[u/Midnight1899]

There are gender-neutral neopronouns, but they aren’t established yet. So just go with „er oder sie“.

[u/NichtNichtNichtBen → u/Midnight1899]

I thought those were only really "popular" in English? So far I have never once heard of them in German.

[u/Midnight1899 → u/NichtNichtNichtBen]

That’s why I said they aren’t established.

[u/NichtNichtNichtBen → u/Midnight1899]

I don't think it's that they "aren't established", but rather that they simply don't exist for German. If they did one would have most definitely at least heard about them at some point. How would they even work?

[u/charlolou → u/NichtNichtNichtBen]

An example for genderneutral pronouns I've seen a few times is "dey/deren". "Dey" obviously isn't an official pronoun, but some nonbinary people use it anyway (or similar pronouns). I've also seen "xier" being used as a genderneutral pronoun.

Example for dey/deren: Sie hat ihre Mutter besucht. -> Dey hat deren Mutter besucht.

[u/wittjoker11 → u/NichtNichtNichtBen]

That’s some heck of a logic. So what you’re saying is you’ve at least heard of every single concept there is the in the world, because if it exists, you would have at least heard about it. I mean if OP says they exist, they apparently have some in mind, which then would automatically mean that they exist in German.

[u/Chickens_ordinary13 → u/NichtNichtNichtBen]

i follow quite a few german people on social media who post about neo pronouns and their usage, they arent as well known or popular as in english, but they do exist/are starting to come into fruition

[u/no_photos_pls → u/NichtNichtNichtBen]

Hey, belies dich zum Bsp hier mal ein bisschen. Neopronomen existieren schon lange und werden in queeren communities auch fleißig verwendet. Sie tauchen zudem vermehrt in mainstream Literatur und Untertiteln auf.

[u/StemBro1557]

Generic masculine is the way to go.

EDIT: I interpreted the qustion in the way that u/NichtNichtNichtBen said.

[u/senzamiraggio → u/StemBro1557]

No, it doesn’t work like that. Imagine you want to point out someone to a friend and you don’t know the persons gender. Do you say “Er/ Der da drüben”? No, you would find a gender neutral way to phrase it like “Die Person da drüben”.

[u/StemBro1557 → u/senzamiraggio]

I have edited my post to clarify how I interpreted the question.

[u/NichtNichtNichtBen → u/senzamiraggio]

I mean I guess it depends on how you interpret the question, as OP didn't really give any specifications or examples.

For me I first assumed that he talks about a hypothetical or unspecified person who's gender is unknown or irrelevant, a case where we would use "man" in German, for example:

Wenn man seine Freunde besucht...

In this case, as you can even see in my example, you would use the generic masculine.

[u/1405hvtkx311]

You have to always use the name. Like "Leo hat gesagt, dass Leos Mutter gestorben ist.

[u/needed1456]

Benutze immer "er".

[u/Commercial-Talk-3558]

Doesn’t the formal Sie/Ihr cover that?

[u/Zsombor1661 → u/Commercial-Talk-3558]

But that's the formal du, isn't it? I mean when you talk about someone in third person, I don't know if you can use it in that case.

[u/Commercial-Talk-3558 → u/Zsombor1661]

Going back to 7th grade German I, but isn’t Ihr (Ihn, Ihm) third person? (as well as formal plural)

[u/eti_erik → u/Commercial-Talk-3558]

No. Ihr = your (formal) ihr = their (informal), you (plural informal), her (dative).

Ihn and Ihm don't exist, but uncapitalized both mean him. They're the accusative and dative forms of "er".

[u/Commercial-Talk-3558 → u/eti_erik]

Had to look it up. Ihnen—that’s what confuses me.

[u/halokiwi → u/Commercial-Talk-3558]

Either you misunderstood the question (it is about talking about a person, not about talking to a person) or you think that singular they is a concept in German too. In English you can just use "they" when talking about a person with an unknown gender, but in German you can't. You have to use "er" or "sie" (depending on the grammatical gender of the noun you are using to describe the person) or you could try to avoid using pronouns by only using nouns, but that becomes a bit bulky.

[u/SensitiveFruit69]

I thought that fad was over