There are four cases in the German language: nominative for subjects, accusative for direct objects, dative for indirect objects, and genitive for possession.
You will see single words changing because of them:
German
English
Ich gehe in das Café.
I go to the café. (accusative)
Ich sitze auf dem Stuhl in dem Café.
I sit on the chair in the cafe. (dative)
Below, let's discuss when different German cases are used.
Nominative Case
Rule 1: The nominative is the basic form of all nouns and pronouns. It describes the subject of the sentence, i.e. the person, the thing, or the action that acts.
To find the subject, we would ask: Wer oder was (Who or what is acting?)
German
English
Ich gebe dir ein Buch.
I'm giving you a book. (I is the subject, the person who's acting, which is why it stands in the nominative case).
Rule 2: The nominative case is also used after the verbs sein, werden, and bleiben, even if it's not applied to the subject.
Accusative Case
Rule 3: The accusative case is always used for the direct object in the sentence.
To find the direct object, we can ask: Wen oder was? (To whom or what is something happening?)
German
English
Ich gebe dir ein Buch.
I'll give you a book. (Something is happening to the book, thus is stands in the accusative case).
Exception: There is an exception to the rule above: there are verbs that are used in the dative case only (e.g. antworten). They may seem like a direct object, but won't be used with the accusative case.
German
English
Ich antworte dir.
I answer you.
Rule 4: Accusative case is also used after certain prepositions, such as durch (through), bis (until), für (for), ohne (without), etc. We will discuss about them on A2 levels here.
Dative Case
Rule 5: The dative case is used for the indirect object in the sentence. An indirect object is the person or thing to (or for) whom (or which) an action is being performed.
We would ask: Wem oder Was (To whom or for whom is this being done?)
German
English
Ich gebe dir ein Buch.
I'll give you a book. (You is the indirect object, the action is done to "you.")
Rule 6: Dative case is also used after certain prepositions, such as auβer (besides), bei (next to), mit (with), nach (after), etc. We will discuss about them on A2 level here.
Verbs with the Dative Case
Rule 7: There are certain verbs in German that always put their object in the dative case, even when there’s no preposition and no indirect object. Here they are:
- danken (to thank)
- glauben (to believe)
- helfen (to help)
- gehören (belong to)
- gefallen (to like)
Genitive Case
Rule 8: The genitive case shows to whom something or someone belongs, i.e. possession or ownership.
To find the genitive case, you can ask: Wessen? (Whose is this?)
Rule 9: In the genitive, not only the articles, pronouns and adjectives change but also endings of nouns. Male and neutral nouns get an extra "s/es" at the end.
German
English
Das ist das Buch eines Lehrers.
That is the book of a teacher. (The book belongs to the teacher, this it is put in the genitive case).
Rule 10: Most often, you will see this case in written German. In spoken language, people usually use the preposition “von” (from) and the dative case instead of the genitive case.