Germanic In
German, the
informal second-person singular personal pronoun ("you")—just like in English—is sometimes used in the same sense as the indefinite pronoun ("one"). In
Norwegian,
Swedish and
Danish, these are also and . In
Dutch the
informal second-person singular personal pronoun ("you")—just like in English—is frequently used in the same sense as the indefinite pronoun ("one").
Slavic In
Russian, the second person is used for some impersonal constructions. Sometimes with the second-person singular pronoun , but often in the
pronoun-dropped form. An example is the proverb with the literal meaning "if you chase after two hares, you will not catch even one", or figuratively, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
Uralic In
Finnish, the second-person pronoun can sometimes be generic, but this use is only recommended in spoken or otherwise informal language. Other constructs are more neutral, such as a verb without a pronoun and in the third person (
zero person) or in the
passive ("fourth person"), somewhat similar to
one in English. The second person is popular largely due to the influence of English. A similar formation, though without the pronoun
sinä and therefore only with the second-person
possessive suffix -si, can be encountered in some dialects.
Arabic In
Darija (
Arabic as spoken in the
Maghreb), there are two distinct singular second-person pronouns, one masculine (used when addressing a man) and one feminine (used when addressing a woman); but when used as generic pronouns, the speaker uses the pronoun with the gender corresponding to their
own gender, rather than that of the person they are addressing.
Japonic In
Japanese, the sentence structure may be adjusted to make the
patient of an action, or even the action itself, the topic of a sentence, thus avoiding the use of a pronoun altogether. == See also ==