| A Basic Review of the Cases |
| A Basic Review of the Cases Nominative Case The Nominative Case is used when a word is the Subject of the sentence. Accusative Case The Accusative Case is used when a word is the Direct Object or the object of the prepositions Durch, F�r, Gegen, Ohne or Um. Dative Case The Dative Case is used when a word is the Indirect Object or the object of the prepositions Aus, Ausser, Bei, Nach, Seit, Von or Zu. Genitive Case The Genitive Case is used when using a Possessive or if the word is the object of the prepositions Anstatt, Trotz, W�hrend or Wegen. The boy is giving the girl the gift for her birthday. The Subject of the sentence is the noun or pronoun that is doing the action of the sentence. The verb is "is giving", and the boy is doing the giving, therefore the boy is the Subject or the sentence. It will use the Nominative Case. The Direct Object is the object being directly affected by the verb and subject. It answers the Question "What?" The subject did "What?" The boy is giving what? The boy is giving the gift. Therefore the gift is the Direct Object. It will use the Accusative Case. The Indirect Object is the object that is affected by the subject, verb and usually the direct object. It answers the question "to/for Whom?" The boy is giving to or for whom? The boy is giving to the girl. The girl is the Indirect Object. It will use the Dative Case. The object of a preposition is any word or phrase that starts with and immediately follows a preposition. In the given sentence, "for her birthday" is the prepositional phrase. Since the preposition "for" or "F�r" is used, it will use the Accusative Case. The boy's father is my brother. In German one says the possessed noun first, then the possessor. When using possessives, you may use two formats. One is to use the preposition "Von". "The father of the boy" can be said by saying "Der Vater von dem Junge" Notice this uses a Dative Preposition and therefore uses the Dative Case (der=dem). The second format is to omit the "von" by using Genitive Case=Der Vater des Junges. |