German pronouns?

Question

I'm having a lot of trouble working with some German dative reflexive nouns. At least, that's what I think they are. For example, there is a sentence that says "Mir ist kalt". I know that when you are talking about being cold you use dative, and that the dative of ich ist mir. What I don't get here, is why is it "Mir IST kalt". Why isn't it mir bin kalt? And with "Ist dir kalt"? Why isn't that "Bist dir kalt"? Is there a chart or explanation somewhere as to why these are, cause I'm totally drawing straw? And "Ist ihnen kalt?" "Nein. Uns ist nicht kalt." I can't find ihnen anywhere (I have a chart thing) and I don't get how that can be anything in the dative, cause the only ihnen I can find is for "them", not "you". I know what I'm asking is a lot and confusing, but if anyone could help me I would be very greatful, cause as of right now I'm not really sure what the heck I'm doing. Thanks!

-Sarah

Answer 1

The reason you use ist, is that the nouns are not reflexive.  The reflexive pronoun for Ich is mich, not mir.

The subject, which you understand is not used, is Es, so that Es ist mir kalt (it is cold to me) is what is really happening.  Mir is never a subject it is an indirect object, so it does not affect the verb conjugation.