A2 · The four cases
Verbs that take the dative
helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören
A closed list of verbs whose only object is dative, where English would use a plain object.
Most German verbs with one object take the accusative. A small, fixed group takes the dative instead, and their English equivalents give no hint: helfen, danken, folgen, gefallen, gehören, passen, antworten, gratulieren, glauben, begegnen. Ich helfe dir, not "dich".
The group is closed — no new verbs join it — so it can simply be learned. Ten or twelve cover almost everything a learner meets in the first two years, and they are worth memorising with a pronoun attached, because that is where the case is visible: ihm helfen, ihm danken, ihm gefallen.
Two of them turn the English sentence around. Gefallen means "to be pleasing to", so what English calls the subject becomes the dative object: Das Buch gefällt mir is "I like the book", with the book as subject. Gehören works the same way: Das Buch gehört mir.
Die Form
| helfen | Ich helfe dir. |
| danken | Ich danke Ihnen. |
| gefallen | Das Bild gefällt mir. |
| gehören | Der Schlüssel gehört ihm. |
| folgen, passen, antworten | Folgen Sie mir bitte. |
| gratulieren, begegnen | Ich gratuliere dir. |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
These verbs take a dative object and no accusative.
Kannst du mir helfen?Can you help me?
With gefallen, the thing liked is the subject.
Die Stadt gefällt uns.We like the city.
A dative object cannot become the subject of a passive.
Mir wurde geholfen.I was helped.
The list is closed and short enough to learn.
Ich danke dir für alles.Thank you for everything.
Genauer hingesehen
Why it makes sense, historically
The dative marks the person something happens to, or for, rather than the thing being acted on. Helping somebody does not change them the way hitting them does; it is done for their benefit. Thanking, answering, congratulating and following are all directed at a person without altering them.
That intuition will not decide every case reliably — unterstützen means much the same as helfen and takes the accusative — but it makes the list easier to hold, and it explains why the same verbs take the dative in Latin, in Russian and in Old English too.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
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the verb takes both a dative and an accusative
it does not belong to this group.
Ich gebe dir das Buch.I am giving you the book.
Geben, zeigen, schicken have two objects and follow the ordinary rule: the person is dative, the thing accusative.
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a passive is built from a dative verb
the dative stays dative and the sentence has no subject.
Ihm wurde nicht geantwortet.He was not answered.
Only an accusative object can become a passive subject.
Woran man es erkennt
- mir
- dir
- ihm
- ihr
- uns
- euch
- ihnen
- Ihnen
Beispielsätze
Er hat mir sehr geholfen.He helped me a great deal.
Das Kleid passt dir gut.The dress suits you.
Sie hat mir nicht geantwortet.She did not answer me.
Wem gehört das?Whose is this?
Ich bin ihm gestern begegnet.I ran into him yesterday.
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
Wie geht es Ihnen?How are you?
Das Essen schmeckt mir.I like the food.
Ich gratuliere euch beiden.Congratulations to you both.
Folgen Sie bitte dem Weg.Please follow the path.
Diese Jacke gehört meiner Schwester.This jacket is my sister’s.
Glaub mir, das stimmt.Believe me, that is right.
Besonderheiten (2)
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A second family: feelings in the dative
German expresses several physical and emotional states with a dative person and no subject at all: <z>Mir ist kalt</z>, <z>Mir ist schlecht</z>, <z>Mir tut der Kopf weh</z>. The person is not doing anything; the state is happening to them, which is exactly what the dative marks.
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glauben takes both, with a difference
<z>Ich glaube dir</z> means "I believe you, the person"; <z>Ich glaube das</z> means "I believe that, the statement". Person in the dative, statement in the accusative — and both in one sentence: <z>Ich glaube dir das nicht</z>.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
English "help someone" has a plain object, so the accusative feels obvious, and dich is what comes out. There is no rule to apply — helfen is simply one of the verbs in this group, and the group has to be learned as a list. The good news is that it is short and stable: the same twelve verbs account for nearly every occurrence.
helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören — always dative.
Jetzt selbst
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