Once
you are familiar with German nouns, it's time to learn how to start
forming sentences. In English, once you have the subject, the verb
and the direct object, this is an easy enough thing to do; you put
the words in the right order and start talking.
It
doesn't work this way in German, however. Word order - the position
of words in a sentence - isn't as crucial in German as it is in
English. The reason for this is that in German, nouns, pronouns,
articles, adjectives and prepositions occur in four cases:
nominative, accusative, dative and genitive.
Cases
are the form nouns, pronouns, adjectives and prepositions take in a
sentence depending on their function. When we speak of cases and
nouns, we are speaking of their articles, since it is primarily the
article that comes before a noun that indicates its gender, number
and - you guessed it - case. Don't be put off by these four cases.
Basically, the nominative case indicates the subject of a sentence,
the accusative case indicates the direct object of a sentence and the
dative case indicates the indirect object of a sentence. The genitive
case is used to show possession, as in the phrase "the fish's
tail."
In
German, cases enable you to vary the order of nouns and pronouns
without changing the overall meaning of the sentence.
The Subject is the Nominative Case
You
begin with the nominative case. Nominative is the case of
the subject of the sentence, that is, of the noun or
pronoun performing the action (or undergoing the state of being) of
the verb.
Nominative (Subject)
|
Verb
|
Ich (I)
|
Trinke (drink)
|
The Accusative Case Goes with the Direct Object
The direct
object refers to at whom or what the action of the verb is
being directed. You also use the accusative with time and measuring
data that answers the questions how short, how soon, how often, how
much, how old and so on.
Nominative
(Subject) |
Verb
|
Accusative
(Direct Object) |
Er (he)
|
schickt (sends)
|
ein Paket (a package)
|
The
Dative Case Goes with the Indirect Object
The
dative case can be used instead of a possessive adjective with parts
of the body and after certain verbs, prepositions and adjectives. It
is used primarily to indicate the indirect object, however.
The indirect object is the object for whose benefit
or in whose interest the action of the verb is being performed.
Nominative
(Subject) |
Verb
|
Dative
(Indirect Object) |
Accusative
(Direct Object) |
Er (he)
|
schickt (sends)
|
seinem Bruder
(his brother) |
ein Paket
(a package) |
The Genitive Case Takes Possession
The
genitive case indicates possession.
Nominative
(Subject) |
Verb
|
Dative
(Indirect Object) |
Genitive
(Possessive) |
Accusative
(Direct Object) |
Er
(he) |
schickt (sends)
|
der Frau
(the wife) |
seines Bruders
(of his brother) |
ein Paket
(a package) |
