What you’ll be able to do
After this lesson, you will be able to describe your morning and evening routine in German using reflexive verbs. You will recognise when a reflexive pronoun is accusative (doing something to yourself) and when it is dative (doing something for yourself). You will also be able to spot reflexive verbs in real German texts.
The idea
A reflexive verb describes an action you do to yourself. In English, you might say “I wash myself” or simply “I wash.” In German, many everyday actions are reflexive, and you must include a reflexive pronoun.
The reflexive pronoun matches the subject. For ich (I), it is mich. For du (you), it is dich. For er/sie/es (he/she/it), it is sich. For wir (we), it is uns. For ihr (you plural), it is euch. For sie/Sie (they/you formal), it is sich.
Most reflexive verbs take an accusative pronoun. The action goes directly back to the subject: Ich wasche mich (I wash myself). Some verbs take a dative pronoun because another part of the body or object is already the direct object: Ich wasche mir die Hände (I wash my hands — literally, “I wash to myself the hands”). The dative pronoun says who benefits from the action.
See it in German
Here are reflexive verbs you will use every day. Accusative reflexives come first, then dative.
- Ich freue mich auf das Wochenende. (I am looking forward to the weekend.)
- Er zieht sich um. (He changes his clothes.)
- Sie setzt sich auf den Stuhl. (She sits down on the chair.)
- Wir wäschen uns die Hände. (We wash our hands.)
- Ich kaufe mir ein neues Handy. (I buy myself a new phone.)
- Du putzt dir die Zähne. (You brush your teeth.)
- Er wäscht sich die Haare. (He washes his hair.)
- Sie zieht sich eine Jacke an. (She puts on a jacket.)
- Ich entspanne mich am Abend. (I relax in the evening.)
- Wir treffen uns um acht Uhr. (We meet at eight o’clock.)
Notice the pattern: accusative reflexives have no other direct object (sich umziehen, sich setzen, sich freuen auf). Dative reflexives have a body part or object as the accusative object (mir die Hände waschen, dir die Zähne putzen).
Read it in the wild
Now find reflexive verbs in a real text. Every news article on this site has an A1-A2 German version with a vocabulary box. Open any A1 article — for example, one about daily life or health — and read with this task:
Find three reflexive verbs in the article. Write each one down with its reflexive pronoun and the English meaning.
You need to know about 95–98% of the words in a text to understand it and absorb new vocabulary from context. The A1-A2 versions are written at exactly that level. If you spot a reflexive verb you do not know, check the vocabulary box first, then look it up. This is how you build reflexive verb recognition naturally.
Common mistakes
Here are the errors learners make most often with reflexive verbs.
- Forgetting the reflexive pronoun. Wrong: Ich wasche. Right: Ich wasche mich. Without the pronoun, the sentence sounds incomplete or means something else.
- Using the wrong case. Wrong: Ich wasche mir. Right: Ich wasche mich. When there is no other direct object, the reflexive pronoun is accusative.
- Mixing up accusative and dative. Wrong: Ich putze mich die Zähne. Right: Ich putze mir die Zähne. The teeth are the direct object (accusative), so the pronoun for “myself” becomes dative: mir.
- Putting the pronoun in the wrong position. Wrong: Ich mich wasche. Right: Ich wasche mich. The reflexive pronoun goes right after the conjugated verb, just like any other object.
- Confusing sich with ihn. Wrong: Er wäscht ihn. (He washes him.) Right: Er wäscht sich. (He washes himself.) Sich is the only reflexive pronoun for the third person.
Where you are now
This is lesson 45 of 49, in Phase 8: Independence. You have just learned how to use reflexive verbs for daily routine, building on the word order rules from the previous lesson, Because, That, If: weil, dass, wenn and Word Order. In the next lesson, Talking About the Future in German, you will learn how to describe what you plan to do. For the full learning path, return to the hub article, How to Learn German by Reading: Your Complete Roadmap.
