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I've recently started learning german.

Some basic grammar and the difference between "sie" and "Sie" is sometimes confusing, especially in a weird exercise like this:

"Sie und ihre Mutter und ihr Vater gehen."

How can I tell if this means 'She and her mother and her father are going.' or 'They and their mother and their father are going' ?

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  • With a capital 'S', Sie translates as formal "you". The third person plural ("they") is sie with a small 's'. Of course you can't hear capitals in spoken German. English does not distinguish between singular and plural "you" while German does, at least in the informal version. So translating in either direction sometimes requires that you fill in information from context since the words themselves aren't enough.
    – RDBury
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 5:52
  • Please, before asking a new question, check if the same question has been asked before. On top of this page you find a search bar. If you enter there "Sie you they" you'll get more than 500 results. I bet some of these questions deal exactly with your topic. Have a look: german.stackexchange.com/search?q=Sie+you+they Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 7:03
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    @HubertSchölnast The question states a problem between Sie and sie but asks about the translation as she or they. Not she and you. As such, it does not seem to be a duplicate to your linked question. Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 12:07

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Without further context it's impossible.

The following translations/interpretations are possible, order from most likely to least likely:

She and her mother and her father go (Anna and Anna's mother and Anna's father)

They and her mother and her father go (Anna's friends and Anna's mother and Anna's father)

They and her mother and her father go (Anna's friends and Anna's mother and Beth's father)

They and their mother and their father go (The siblings Anna and Christine go together with their parents)

They and their mother and her father go (Anna and Christine, their mother and Beth's father)

... (I'm too lazy to list all permutations, because this gets very exhaustive and just confusing more unlikely)

Usually when refering to pronouns, you would point at the respective people or the respective people should have been introduced before. In case of ambiguity, names should be used.

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