The accusative marks the direct object, the thing being acted on: Ich sehe den Mann. The dative marks the indirect object, usually the person receiving something: Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch. Certain prepositions and verbs also force one case. English still does this with pronouns, as in he, him and to him.
English kept cases only in its pronouns. You say "I see him", never "I see he", and "she gave it to me", never "to I". German does the same thing, but it marks the case on articles, adjectives and pronouns, not just on pronouns. That is the whole idea. The four cases are nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), dative (indirect object and after certain words) and genitive (possession, increasingly replaced by von plus dative in speech).
Because the case is marked, German word order is more flexible than English. "Den Hund beißt der Mann" means the man bites the dog, even though the dog comes first. In English, word order alone tells you who did what. In German, the articles do.
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der / ein | die / eine | das / ein | die / keine |
| Accusative | den / einen | die / eine | das / ein | die / keine |
| Dative | dem / einem | der / einer | dem / einem | den / keinen |
Look at the accusative row first: only the masculine changes. Der becomes den and ein becomes einen. Feminine, neuter and plural look exactly like the nominative. This is why English speakers often get the accusative right by accident and the dative wrong.
The dative changes everything. Notice that feminine dative is der, which looks like the masculine nominative, and that dative plural nouns add -n if they do not already end in -n or -s: mit den Kindern, mit den Freunden.
| Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er | ihn | ihm |
| sie (she) | sie | ihr |
| es | es | ihm |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie / Sie | sie / Sie | ihnen / Ihnen |
The English word "him" splits into two German words: ihn (accusative) and ihm (dative). "I see him" is Ich sehe ihn. "I give him the book" is Ich gebe ihm das Buch. If you can hear the difference between ihn and ihm, you already understand the case system.
With verbs like geben, schenken, zeigen, schicken and erklären, the thing is accusative and the person is dative.
English uses "to" for the receiver ("give the book to him"), so a useful test is: if you could add "to" or "for" in English, the German noun is probably dative. Do not translate the "to" as zu. "Ich gebe das Buch zu ihm" is wrong; say Ich gebe ihm das Buch.
After a preposition, the case is fixed by the preposition, not by the meaning of the sentence. Memorize these groups.
| Always accusative | Always dative | Two-way (accusative or dative) |
|---|---|---|
| durch, für, gegen, ohne, um | aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu | an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen |
So it is für meinen Bruder (for my brother) but mit meinem Bruder (with my brother), even though both describe a person you do something with or for. The classic English speaker error is "mit meinen Bruder" in the singular, which mixes the accusative into a dative slot.
The nine two-way prepositions take the accusative when there is movement toward a place (answering wohin?) and the dative when something is located somewhere (answering wo?).
| Wohin? (accusative) | Wo? (dative) |
|---|---|
| Ich gehe in die Küche. | Ich bin in der Küche. |
| Ich lege das Handy auf den Tisch. | Das Handy liegt auf dem Tisch. |
| Wir fahren in die Stadt. | Wir wohnen in der Stadt. |
English uses "into" and "in" for some of this, which helps: into the kitchen is accusative, in the kitchen is dative. Verb pairs make it clearer still: legen, stellen, setzen and hängen describe putting something somewhere (accusative), while liegen, stehen and sitzen describe where it is (dative). Hängen does both jobs.
Several prepositions contract with the article in everyday speech: in dem becomes im, in das becomes ins, an dem becomes am, zu dem becomes zum, zu der becomes zur, von dem becomes vom and bei dem becomes beim.
A small group of common verbs takes a dative object where English uses a direct object. These cause more mistakes than any table.
Gefallen trips up English speakers because the sentence is built backward from "I like". The thing you like is the subject and you are in the dative. Turn it around and "Ich gefalle dem Film" would mean the film likes you.
Cases become automatic through phrases you say often, like "mit dem Zug", "in die Stadt" and "Das gefällt mir". Saying them out loud in conversation, with a tutor or in a real shop or station, does more than another worksheet.
The accusative marks the direct object, the thing acted on. The dative marks the indirect object, usually the person receiving something, and is also required after prepositions like mit, bei and zu and verbs like helfen.
Mit always takes the dative. In the singular the masculine and neuter dative article is dem. Den is the masculine accusative singular or the dative plural, as in mit den Kindern.
Ich helfe dir. Helfen is one of a group of verbs that take a dative object, together with danken, gefallen, gehören, antworten and folgen.
Yes, in writing and in set phrases, and after prepositions like wegen and während in formal style. In casual speech many people replace it with von plus the dative, as in das Auto von meinem Vater.
