Teach Yourself German
02 Feb

when do you use the dative case in german?

german for beginners
Amandaaaa asked:


Im a beginner at german, please help?

Joe

3 Responses to “when do you use the dative case in german?”

  1. Goddess of Grammar Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 12:30 am

    I personally usually only use it with “mit” but I know there’s more…

  2. winnie2 Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am

    Here are three of the cases in German with examples of how they are used:

    Nominative: This is the case used for the subject of the sentence. eg: The book is on the table (Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch). The book is the subject of the sentence and is in the nominative case.

    Accusative: This is used with nouns that function as the direct object. eg: Show the book to the teacher (Zeig das Buch dem Lehrer). The book is the direct object in this sentence and therefore is in the accusative case.

    Dative: a noun functions as an indirect object . Using the example from above, the teacher is in the dative case here.

    You also always use the dative with the following prepositions:
    aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu

    There are also some verbs that always take the dative, but you have to learn those as you come across them.

  3. jessicle Says:
    February 7th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    Hi,
    I always teach my students to use the following to help them distinguish between cases:

    NOM: Subject - Who or what is doing the verb
    ACC: Direct Object - Who or what is being “verbed”?
    DAT: Indirect Object - Who is it to or for?

    Meine Oma hat dem alten Mann einen Kuchen gebacken. (My grandma baked the old man a cake.)

    NOM: Subject - Who or what is doing the baking? Meine Oma
    ACC: Direct Object - Who or what is being “baked”? Einen Kuchen
    DAT: Indirect Object - Who is it to or for? Dem alten Mann

    The Dative is also used after the following prepositions:
    (I made up the word ZVAMBANGS to help my students remember them all.)
    zu
    von
    außer
    mit
    bei
    aus
    nach
    gegenüber
    seit

    The dative is also used with the following prepositions, but only when it shows location and not movement (then it would be accusative).
    I taught my students vü u in haza (as in see you in haza) to help them remember this lot…
    vor
    über
    unter
    in
    neben
    hinter
    an
    zwischen
    auf

    Hope that helps.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Teach Yourself German