Get the appGet the app
German frequency list

No. 10 in German

es

"Es" in German means "it" in English.

In a sentence

  • Es regnet heute stark.

    It is raining heavily today.

    In this sentence, 'es' serves as a formal subject in an impersonal construction about the weather.

  • Es ist wichtig, jeden Tag Deutsch zu lernen.

    It is important to learn German every day.

    Here, 'es' functions as a placeholder subject in an introductory clause.

  • Ich habe es gestern im Laden gesehen.

    I saw it in the store yesterday.

    In this case, 'es' acts as a direct object pronoun referring to an object previously mentioned in discourse.

Hear it in real podcasts

The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “es” in actual German podcasts.

Find “es” in podcasts

Learn it from shows you like

LangTurbo plays German podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.

Learning English?

LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into Deutsch, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.

German books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).