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A friend wrote this sentence:

und sie sagt...

Isn't "sie" always supposed to be capitalized?

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    Imagine, sie is always written lower case. Who do you think was addressed in a talk, written in a book, with Könnten sie das tun?. - the conversational partner or the group of people in the background? You see Sie and sie also help to understand the context of a situation.
    – äüö
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 12:53
  • If „Sie“ is used as the formal form of „you“, it is capitalized. But not if it is the feminine personal pronoun „sie“ („she“) or the plural personal pronoun „sie“ („they“). IOW, „sie“ can have different meanings, and only oneof those is capitalized.
    – Rudy Velthuis
    Commented Nov 27, 2017 at 17:55

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"sie" can either be a formal adress, this is when it is capitalized or it can be a pronoun, in which case it is not capitalized like all other pronouns.

This is direct speech, in which "Sie" serves to address a person / a group of persons which can be male or female in a formal way:

"Kann ich Sie auf einen Drink einladen?"

This is not directed to the person(s) I want to invite to a drink, but to a third person, which might be asked for permission. The "sie" relates to a female person or a group of persons, which are not addressed directly by the question, as I said.

"Kann ich sie auf einen Drink einladen?"

In your example the "sie" is used in the second sense, as a pronoun and thus is correctly written small

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4

The word 'sie' is used for third person singular (she) and plural (them).

See

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