German uses reflexive verbs far more than English does. English has I wash myself but would normally just say I wash; German says ich wasche mich and means nothing unusual by it. A whole set of everyday verbs simply comes with sich attached, and the dictionary lists them that way.
The reflexive pronouns
They are the ordinary object pronouns, except in the third person where every form is sich.
| accusative | dative | |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er / sie / es | sich | sich |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie / Sie | sich | sich |
Only ich and du distinguish the two cases. Everybody else uses one form for both, which is why the accusative-or-dative question below matters less in practice than it looks.
Accusative is the default
If the reflexive pronoun is the only object, it is accusative.
| Verb | Example |
|---|---|
| sich freuen | Ich freue mich. — I am pleased. |
| sich waschen | Ich wasche mich. — I am washing. |
| sich setzen | Setz dich! — Sit down! |
| sich fühlen | Ich fühle mich gut. — I feel good. |
| sich erinnern | Ich erinnere mich. — I remember. |
| sich beeilen | Beeil dich! — Hurry up! |
| sich interessieren | Ich interessiere mich dafür. — I am interested in it. |
| sich entschuldigen | Ich entschuldige mich. — I apologise. |
Notice how many of these are not reflexive in English at all. Ich freue mich is just "I am pleased" — there is no "myself" in the English, and translating it in is the wrong instinct.
Dative when something else is the direct object
If the sentence already has a direct object, the reflexive pronoun steps down to dative. This is almost always a body part or a possession.
Ich wasche mich. — I am washing. (accusative — me is the object)
Ich wasche mir die Hände. — I am washing my hands. (dative — the hands are the object)
More examples of the same shape:
Ich kaufe mir ein Auto. — I am buying myself a car.
Ich putze mir die Zähne. — I am brushing my teeth.
German does not use a possessive here. It is ich wasche mir die Hände, not meine Hände. The dative pronoun already says whose they are, and adding meine on top sounds wrong.
Where the pronoun sits
Directly after the conjugated verb in a normal sentence, and after the subject if something else has taken first position.
Ich freue mich auf das Wochenende.
Heute freue ich mich auf das Wochenende.
In a subordinate clause the verb goes to the end and the pronoun stays near the front:
Ich weiß, dass er sich auf das Wochenende freut.
The verb-final rule is the one from German subordinate clauses.
The ones with a fixed preposition
Several reflexive verbs come welded to a preposition, and the pair has to be learned together — the preposition is not predictable from the English.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| sich freuen auf + accusative | to look forward to |
| sich freuen über + accusative | to be pleased about |
| sich interessieren für + accusative | to be interested in |
| sich erinnern an + accusative | to remember |
| sich kümmern um + accusative | to take care of |
sich freuen auf and sich freuen über differ only in the preposition and mean different things: auf is something coming, über is something that already happened.
In the perfect tense
Reflexive verbs all take haben, without exception, even the ones that describe movement.
Ich habe mich gefreut. — I was pleased.
Ich habe mich gesetzt. — I sat down.
That is one fewer thing to decide — see German past tense for when sein is used elsewhere.
What to actually memorise
Learn the verb with its sich in place, the way the dictionary lists it, and treat the accusative form as the default. The dative version only appears when a body part or a possession is already the object, and it will sound wrong before you can explain why.
Rules stick faster once you have met the words. Every example above links to its own page.
Practise in the trainer