The nouns in dativ plural also get an additional n at the end. We scan back to the table and see that plural dative = den. Giving thanks TO the children = ‘the children’ are the indirect objects and therefore in the dative case. I thanked the children – Ich habe den Kinder n gedankt. What does he give the student? A book, the accusative direct object. He gives the book TO the student = the indirect object and therefore the dative. Der Lehrer, the subject and therefore nominative.

The teacher gives the student a book – Der Lehrer gibt dem Schüler ein Buch. Here, ‘ dir‘ is the dative indirect object, and ‘ eine E-mail’ becomes the accusative direct object. I will send you the email – Ich werde dir die E-mail schicken. The man loves the woman – Der Mann liebt die Frau, or in contrast, The woman loves the man – Die Frau liebt den Mann. I am eating a piece of cake – Ich esse ein Stück Kuchen. The children shared an apple – Die Kinder haben einen Apfel geteilt. The rest stays the same as the nominative. The accusativeĪs you can tell from the table, only the masculine form changes in the accusative. However, we know from our knowledge of prepositions, that IN + movement = the accusative case. Das Kind is the subject and therefore in the nominative. The child goes to the park every morning – Das Kind geht jeden morgen in den Park. The woman is listening to music – Die Frau hört Musik. The old man and his dog – Der alte Mann und sein Hund. However, the masculine nominative stays as EIN, and likewise the accusative is EINEN, dative is EINEM, and genitive is EINES.Īnd now for some examples… 1. This is the definite article table, the same works for the indefinite (ein). Saying them out loud also helps as you can add a rhythm to it. Like most German grammar rules, a table can come in very handy! It makes learning how the German cases much easier. For example in English, we show possession with apostrophes such as, ‘The woman’s song’ or in basic terms, ‘the song of the woman’. The genitive case expresses possession.Here, the man is the indirect object, because the song was sang to him. For example, ‘The woman sang the song to the man‘. The indirect object is the person who ‘gets’ the direct object. The dative case is for indirect objects.It will therefore will be in the accusative case. For example if we take the same sentence as above, ‘the song’ is the direct object as it was sung. The direct object is the person or thing that receives the action. The accusative case is for direct objects.For example in the sentence ‘The woman sang the song’, ‘The woman’ is the subject.

The subject is the thing doing the action.

The nominative case is used for the subject of sentences.This can help us know which case must be used… Let us take a closer look: A German noun’s article changes depending on whether it is a subject, object, direct object or indirect object. For example, der Mann, die Katze, das Auto.Ģ. If we look back to our post on German Nouns, you will remember that they have genders. There are a few things we need to know before we can completely understand the German cases. However, if there is any confusion about how each one works, then this page is definitely for you! How can we understand the German cases? You may already know that in German, we have the Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive case. German cases? For any German language learner, the cases play a huge role in how sentences are formed.

Dativ akkusativ german grammar