The four German cases explained simply

German has four cases: the nominative, the accusative, the dative and the genitive. A case shows the job a noun does in the sentence. The nominative marks the subject, the accusative the direct object, the dative the person who receives something, and the genitive the owner. You see the case mostly in the article: der Chef becomes den Chef, dem Chef or des Chefs. Prepositions and some verbs also decide the case, so a few short lists do most of the work.

#What is a case in German?

English still has a small piece of a case system in its pronouns: you say "he sees her", not "him sees she". German does the same thing, but with its articles as well as its pronouns, and with some endings on adjectives and nouns. Because the endings show who does what, German can move the parts of a sentence around without changing the meaning.

Both sentences describe the same scene. The second one simply puts the key first, for emphasis. der marks the one who is looking and den marks the thing he is looking for. In English only the position tells you; in German the case does.

#What are the four German cases?

Each case answers its own question word. When you are unsure, ask the question and see which one fits.

#How do the articles change in each case?

This is the table worth learning by heart. Everything else builds on it.

Three patterns make it smaller than it looks:

• Only the masculine changes between the nominative and the accusative: der becomes den. Feminine, neuter and plural look the same in both.
• In the dative, masculine and neuter share dem, and a plural noun adds -n: mit den Kindern.
• In the genitive, masculine and neuter nouns add -s or -es: des Chefs, des Geldes.

The indefinite article ein, the negative kein and the possessives such as mein and dein follow the same pattern. Since ein has no plural, the table shows kein there.

Pronouns change too: ich, mich, mir or er, ihn, ihm. German pronouns in every case has the full table. And because adjectives take endings that depend on the case, the cases lead straight on to German adjective endings.

#When do you use the nominative?

The nominative is the case of the subject: the person or thing that does the action, and that the verb agrees with. It is also the case after sein, werden and bleiben, because there the second noun is the same person or thing as the subject. Every noun in a dictionary is listed in the nominative.

#When do you use the accusative?

The accusative is the most common case after the nominative. You need it:

• for the direct object, the thing you have, need, buy, see or want
• after the prepositions durch, für, gegen, ohne and um
• after es gibt (there is, there are)
• in many time phrases without a preposition, such as jeden Tag or nächsten Montag

Telling the subject from the object is the first thing to get right, and nominative or accusative goes through it step by step. The five prepositions have their own guide in the accusative prepositions.

#When do you use the dative?

The dative has three main jobs:

• the receiver: the person you give, send, show or explain something to
• after the prepositions aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von and zu
• with a group of verbs such as helfen, danken, gefallen and gehören

It also turns up in many everyday phrases about how you feel, such as Mir ist kalt (I'm cold).

There is a full guide to the German dative case, one to the dative prepositions and one to the verbs that take the dative.

Accusative or dative after in, an and auf?

Nine prepositions, among them in, an and auf, can take either case. The rule is about movement: when something moves to a place (wohin?), use the accusative; when it is at a place (wo?), use the dative.

The whole group is in Wechselpräpositionen.

#Do Germans still use the genitive?

Yes, but much more in writing than in speech. In conversation most people show possession with von and the dative. Names simply add -s, with no apostrophe: Annas Wohnung. After wegen, trotz and während, written German uses the genitive, while many people say the dative.

You need to recognise it from A2 and use it in writing from B1. Is the German genitive dying? shows where you still need it.

#How do you work out which case to use?

When a sentence stops you, go through it in this order:

1. Is there a preposition? Then the preposition decides. For the two-way prepositions, ask wo or wohin.
2. Who or what does the action? That is the subject, in the nominative.
3. Does the verb take the dative, like helfen or gefallen? Then the object is dative.
4. Otherwise, the thing the action is done to is accusative, and the person who receives it is dative.

Here ich does the giving (nominative), den Schlüssel is what is given (accusative) and meiner Kollegin is who gets it (dative).

#How does Linota help with German cases?

Every morning Linota's Home brings a grammar rule at your level, and the grammar lesson library is there when you want to go back to one. When you tap a word in a text, its meaning appears in the sentence you found it in, so you see den, dem and des at work in real German rather than in a drill. Endungs-Poker asks you to play the right article and ending, and Say it yourself has you build whole sentences in German, where the cases have to come out right.

#The short version

• Nominative: the subject. der Chef
• Accusative: the direct object, and after durch, für, gegen, ohne, um. Only the masculine changes: den Chef
• Dative: the receiver, after aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, and with verbs like helfen: dem Chef
• Genitive: the owner, mostly in writing: des Chefs
• In, an, auf and friends: wohin takes the accusative, wo takes the dative.

Start with nominative or accusative, then move on to the dative.