# sie

**Part of speech:** PRON  
**Frequency rank:** #4 most common German word  
**Language:** German

One of the trickiest German words: sie means "she", "they", AND — capitalized as Sie — the formal "you". You tell them apart by the verb ending and, for formal you, the capital letter. Getting this right is essential for polite German.

## Meanings

- **she (3rd person singular feminine)** — Takes a singular verb: sie ist, sie hat.
- **they (3rd person plural)** — Takes a plural verb: sie sind, sie haben. Same word as "she", disambiguated only by the verb.
- **you (formal) — always capitalized Sie** — The polite address for strangers, officials, older people. Uses the same plural verb form as "they" (Sie sind, Sie haben) but is always written with a capital S.

## Forms

sie

## Nearby words by frequency

- [der](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/der)
- [sein](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/sein)
- [ich](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/ich)
- [ein](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/ein)
- [nicht](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/nicht)
- [haben](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/haben)
- [du](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/du)
- [und](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/und)
- [es](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/es)

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Source: [https://mostspoken.com/words/de/sie](https://mostspoken.com/words/de/sie) — MostSpoken German frequency dictionary.