German cases

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Contents 1 Nominative: 2 Genitive: 3 Dative: 4 Accusative:

Nominative:

• always used for the subject of a sentence
• also used for the object of sein, werden, heißen
• noun suffix: none
• German articles: der, die, das, plural die
• German pronouns: ich, du, er/sie/es, wir, ihr, sie, Sie

Genitive:

• always used for the owner of something, except if the preposition von is used:
  • "das Haus meines Vaters" (my father's house) consists of "das Haus" in nominative and "mein Vater" in genitive
  • "die Farbe des neuen Autos" (the color of the new car) consists of "die Farbe" in nominative and "das neue Auto" in genitive
  • "Susis Tante" (Sue's aunt) consists of "Tante" in nominative and "Susi" in genitive
• used after the prepositions (an)statt, trotz, während, wegen, oberhalb, unterhalb innerhalb, außerhalb, though spoken German often uses the dative case instead
• noun suffix: masculine/neuter: (E)S, sometimes (E)N, feminine: none
• German articles: des, der, des, plural der
• German pronouns: mein, dein, sein/ihr/sein, unser, euer, ihr, Ihr

Dative:

• usually used for the indirect object, i.e. the object after a preposition
• If a verb has two objects, a thing and a person to which the action with the thing is directed (e.g. to give something to someone), the person is in the dative and the thing in the accusative:
  • "Er gibt ihr das Buch" (He gives her the book) consists of "sie" in dative and "das Buch" in accusative
• If a preposition can express either location or movement, the dative case indicates a location.
• used for the objects of antworten, danken, gefallen, glauben, gratulieren, helfen, schmecken (with a person as the object)
• used after some prepositions as a substitution for the genitive case in spoken German
• noun suffix: E for masculine/neuter (archaic), otherwise none
• German articles: dem, der, dem, plural den
• German pronouns: mir, dir, ihm/ihr/ihm, uns, euch, ihnen, Ihnen

Accusative:

• usually used for the direct object, i.e. the object without a preposition
• If a verb has two objects, a thing and a person to which the action with the thing is directed (e.g. to give something to someone), the person is in the dative and the thing in the accusative:
  • "Er gibt ihr das Buch" (He gives her the book) consists of "sie" in dative and "das Buch" in accusative
• If a preposition can express either location or movement, the accusative case indicates a movement.
• used for both objects of fragen (to ask someone something)
• used after the prepositions bis, durch, für, gegen, ohne, um
• noun suffix: none
• German articles: den, die, das, plural die
• German pronouns: mich, dich, ihn/sie/es, uns, euch, sie, Sie

languages >> German >> German grammar
German cases (dialect case study)