Indefinite Pronouns: man, jemand, niemand, etwas, nichts
अनिश्चयवाचक सर्वनाम: man, jemand, niemand, etwas, nichts
German has a dedicated impersonal pronoun and clean pairs for someone/no one, something/nothing — as straightforward as Hindi's कोई/कुछ.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
man: the impersonal 'one / people'
Man spricht hier Deutsch. (One speaks German here / German is spoken here.)
यहाँ लोग जर्मन बोलते हैं। / यहाँ जर्मन बोली जाती है।
German man is a dedicated impersonal pronoun — always third-person singular, taking the same verb form as er/sie/es. Hindi has no single word for this — depending on context it uses "लोग", a passive construction ("बोली जाती है"), or a generic "आप"/"हम". man is never used directly as a possessive or object; it changes to einen (accusative) / einem (dative) instead — and never confuse man with jemand ('someone'); they aren't interchangeable.
jemand vs. niemand — someone vs. no one
Ist jemand da? — Nein, niemand ist da. (Is someone there? No, no one is there.)
क्या कोई है? — नहीं, कोई नहीं है।
Just like Hindi's "कोई" vs. "कोई नहीं", German uses a genuine negative pronoun (niemand) rather than negating a positive word elsewhere. Unlike some languages, German doesn't need a second negative anywhere else in the sentence: Niemand ist da is complete on its own — not Niemand ist nicht da.
etwas vs. nichts — something vs. nothing
Ich brauche etwas. Ich brauche nichts. (I need something. I need nothing.)
मुझे कुछ चाहिए। मुझे कुछ नहीं चाहिए।
etwas and nichts are invariable — they never take case endings, unlike articles or adjectives. They can also combine with an adjective (etwas Neues, 'something new'), where the following adjective is unusually capitalized and takes a neuter -es ending — a pattern with no real Hindi equivalent.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
| German | Pronunciation | Hindi | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| man | mahn | कोई / लोग (अव्यक्तिगत)koī / log | one / you / people (impersonal) |
| jemand | YAY-mahnt | कोई (व्यक्ति)koī | someone / somebody |
| niemand | NEE-mahnt | कोई नहींkoī nahīñ | no one / nobody |
| etwas | ET-vahs | कुछkuch | something |
| nichts | nikhts | कुछ नहींkuch nahīñ | nothing |
| jeder / jede / jedes | YAY-der / YAY-deh / YAY-des | हर एकhar ek | each / every |
| alle | AH-leh | सभीsabhī | everyone / all |
| einige | EYE-nig-eh | कुछ / कईkuch / kaī | some / several |
| manche | MAHN-kheh | कुछ (एक तरह के)kuch | some (of a kind) |
| irgendjemand | IR-gent-yay-mahnt | कोई भीkoī bhī | anyone (at all) |
| irgendetwas | IR-gent-et-vahs | कुछ भीkuch bhī | anything (at all) |