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Personal Pronouns - Genitive

Here are the personal pronouns in the second case (genitive):

Form German Phonetic Script English Object Form
1. person singular meiner ['mainɐ] me
2. person singular (familiar) deiner ['dainɐ] you
3. person singular seiner ['zainɐ] him
3. person singular ihrer ['i:rɐ] her
3. person singular seiner ['zainɐ] it
1. person plural unser ['ʊnzɐ] us
2. person plural euer ['ɔyɐ] you
3. person plural ihrer ['i:ərɐ] them
polite form Ihrer ['i:ərɐ] you (polite form)

These genitive forms are hardly used. So it is not really necessary to know them. Here is one example:

German Phonetic Script English
Ich gedenke seiner. [ɪç gə'dɛŋkə 'zainɐ] I remember him.

While "Ich" is the personal pronoun in the nominative case because it is is the acting part of the sentence, "seiner" is the pronoun in the genitive case. In German we say:

German Phonetic Script English
jemandes gedenken ['je:mandəs gə'dɛŋkən] to remember someone

While you only have one object form in English, we use the genitive form in German. The respective question would be: Whose do we remember?