A1 · The four cases
What a case is, and what the four are for
the four cases at a glance
Four jobs a noun can do, four sets of endings — and one table that is worth learning before any of them.
A case is a mark on a noun phrase saying what job that noun does in its sentence. German has four. The nominative is the subject: the one doing it. The accusative is the direct object: the one it is done to. The dative is the indirect object: the one it is done for or given to. The genitive shows possession, and is the one you will meet least in speech.
The mark almost never sits on the noun itself. It sits on the article, and sometimes on an adjective in front of the noun. Der Mann is the man doing something; den Mann is the man it is being done to. The noun did not move and did not change — three letters on the word in front of it did all the work.
This is why German word order looks free and is not. Den Hund sieht der Mann is a perfectly ordinary sentence meaning the man sees the dog, with the dog moved to the front for emphasis. An English speaker reads the first noun as the subject out of pure habit and gets the sentence backwards. The endings, not the positions, say who is who.
Die Form
| nominative — m, f, n, plural | der / die / das / die |
| accusative — m, f, n, plural | den / die / das / die |
| dative — m, f, n, plural; the noun adds -n | dem / der / dem / den |
| genitive — m, f, n, plural | des / der / des / der |
| the one change | masculine der -> den -> dem -> des |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
The nominative answers "who or what is doing it".
Der Lehrer erklärt die Aufgabe.The teacher explains the exercise.
The accusative answers "who or what is it being done to".
Ich sehe den Lehrer.I see the teacher.
The dative answers "to whom or for whom".
Ich gebe dem Lehrer das Heft.I give the teacher the exercise book.
Only the masculine singular changes in all four cases. Feminine and neuter change far less, and that is the fact worth leaning on.
das Buch, das Buch, dem Buch, des Buchesthe book, the book, to the book, of the book
Genauer hingesehen
Why four and not six, and why English has none
Old English had four cases too, with much the same endings and much the same jobs. They wore away over roughly four centuries, and as they went, word order hardened to take over the work. That is the trade in reverse: a language that stops marking the object must start fixing its position, or nobody can tell who bit whom.
The pronouns are the leftovers. Him, her, them, whom are the old accusative and dative still doing their job in the one corner of the language where the endings survived. An English speaker therefore already has the idea of a case — the difficulty is not the concept, it is that German applies it to every noun phrase and not to seven words.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
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the verb is sein, werden or bleiben
what follows is nominative, not accusative.
Er ist ein guter Lehrer.He is a good teacher.
These verbs do not act on anything; they equate two things, and both sides of an equation carry the same case.
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the noun is a masculine "weak" noun such as Student, Kunde, Herr, Nachbar, Junge
the noun itself takes -n or -en in every case except the nominative singular.
Ich frage den Studenten.I ask the student.
A small group of masculines kept an older pattern in which the noun, not only the article, carried the case.
Woran man es erkennt
- der
- den
- dem
- des
- die
- das
- wer
- wen
- wem
Beispielsätze
Der Hund sieht den Mann.The dog sees the man.
Den Hund sieht der Mann.The man sees the dog.
Die Frau gibt dem Kind einen Apfel.The woman gives the child an apple.
Das Auto des Nachbarn steht vor der Tür.The neighbour's car is parked outside the door.
Wer sucht wen?Who is looking for whom?
Noch 8 Beispielsätze
Der Junge liest ein Buch.The boy is reading a book.
Ein Buch liest der Junge.A book is what the boy is reading.
Ich danke dem Arzt.I thank the doctor.
Er hilft der Nachbarin.He helps the neighbour.
Das ist das Fahrrad meiner Schwester.That is my sister's bicycle.
Wem gehört die Tasche?Whose bag is this?
Wen hast du gefragt?Who did you ask?
Der Hund des Nachbarn bellt die ganze Nacht.The neighbour's dog barks all night.
Besonderheiten (2)
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The question words are the case table in miniature
German has a separate question word for three of the four cases: <z>wer</z> for the nominative, <z>wen</z> for the accusative, <z>wem</z> for the dative, <z>wessen</z> for the genitive. Asking the question is the fastest way to find the case of a noun you are unsure about — and the endings of the question words are the endings of the masculine article with the d- swapped for a w-.
wer – wen – wem – wessen, der – den – dem – deswho – whom – to whom – whose
-
Feminine and neuter do far less work than you fear
Learners meet the four-by-four table and see sixteen forms to memorise. There are six distinct words in it. Feminine and neuter are identical in the nominative and the accusative, which removes half the difficulty before it starts — if a noun is <z>die</z> or <z>das</z>, the subject and the object look the same and the sentence has to be read for sense anyway.
Die Frau sieht die Katze.The woman sees the cat.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
This is the single most expensive habit an English speaker brings to German, and it survives for years because it is invisible: the sentence is read, it makes sense, and it means the opposite of what it says. English trained you to take the first noun as the subject. German did not put it there for that reason — it put it there for emphasis, and wrote the subject on the article instead. Read the article first, then the noun.
Read the article, not the position.
Jetzt selbst
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