German Reflexive Verbs (ex. Enjoy yourself!)
Although English does have some reflexive verbs forms (“enjoy yourself”), German relies much more on the reflexive than English does. The grammatical term reflexive simply means that a verb’s subject (the initiator of an action) is the same person as that verb’s object (the person acted upon). The object “reflects” back to, or is a “reflection” of the subject. “We are enjoying ourselves” is a reflexive phrase. “We are enjoying them” is not—because the subject (we) is not the same person as the object (them). The word “reflexive” means the same thing in English and German grammar, but as we said, German uses reflexive verbs much more frequently.