Accusative pronouns

You already know the nominative pronouns — ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, sie, Sie — because every conjugation table starts with them. When the pronoun stops being the doer and becomes the thing being acted on, it changes shape.

Three of these you have met already: mich, dich, uns and euch are exactly the reflexive pronouns from Lesson 11 — ich freue mich. The genuinely new one is ihn, the accusative of er. It is also the one learners forget for longest.

er → ihn in the object position, the same way der → den. If you would say den Tisch, you would say ihn.

• Er sieht mich.

  He sees me.

  he = subject, me = object

• Ich sehe ihn.

  I see him.

  the same two people, swapped round

• Kennst du sie?

  Do you know her?

• Ich rufe dich morgen an.

  I will call you tomorrow.

  anrufen takes a direct object → dich

• Der Zug? Ich nehme ihn um acht.

  The train? I am taking it at eight.

  der Zug is masculine, so "it" is ihn — not es

That last example is worth sitting with. English says it for every object; German picks the pronoun by the gender of the noun. Der Tisch → ihn. Die Zeitung → sie. Das Buch → es. This is the second place your Lesson 18 gender work pays off.