Some humble tips for figuring out the 4 German cases

How are you doing today? I'm hoping that it involved a lot of whatever it is you like. For me, I was very lucky and had a great day of Klettersteig, which will be another post because it's really a beautiful thing when you combine hiking and climbing in nature.

So the topic of this week came from a friend who mentioned how difficult it can be to figure out the different cases within the sentence and... I felt that pain. I'm only starting to feel more comfortable with it myself and thought maybe I can share a bit of what helps me figuring out the 4 German cases in sentences and also provide a short exercise at the end.

So for those of you brand new to German, you might not exactly know what I'm talking about. No worries. But the idea is that in the German language you have 4 different cases that help you determine how to handel the article (e.g. der, die das). The four cases are Nominative, Akkusativ, Dativ, and Genativ. This is not something that we really have in English, which made the concept very difficult to get the hang of. But I'm just grateful that there aren't 7 different cases, as a Czech-speaking German student told me.



I'm not going to go into exactly what all of them are (if you want more details, Lingola has some solid declension info.), but I want to give some tips that help me figure out which is which in a sentence.

Nominativ - What/Who is the sentence mainly about?

"The boy goes to the store." Who is this about? It's about the boy and he is going to the store. Maybe he's going there to buy me some ice cream. That would be very nice of him. I hope he knows I like Mint chocolate chip ice cream... Okay, let's stop thinking about a delicious treat that most likely the boy is not buying. Because the sentence is about the boy, the boy is the Nominativ case. Sentence in German: "Der Junge geht in den Laden."

"Yesterday the package arrived." What is this about? It's about the package and how it arrived yesterday. Was it supposed to arrive yesterday or has the owner been waiting over three weeks and has already gone and bought the thing from the store? We don't know if it's an unimportant or untimely package, but we do know the package is Nominativ because that is who the sentence is about. Sentence in German: "Gestern ist das Paket angekommen."

Nominativ - Use the main verb as a clue!

"The woman drives the girl to the mall." Okay, okay... what if you have doubts about which noun. What now?! There is a way. Think about the main verb in the sentence. The verb is drives. And so who is driving? The woman is our driver! Who knows, maybe the woman is only driving the girl to the mall because she is looking for the hottest new summer fashion or something from the stationary store, the point is that the woman is Nominativ. Sentence in German: "Die Frau fährt das Mädchen zum Einkaufszentrum."

Akkusativ - durch, für, gegen, ohne, um

Thankfully there are some clue words that will always be associated with a case. Durch, für, gegen, ohne, and um will then follow Akkusativ. It would be great to memorize these words. Here are some examples:
  • Die Ente schwimmt direkt durch den Fluss. (The duck swims right though the river.)
  • Das war für die Frau. (That was for the woman.)
  • Der Junge rannte gegen die Wand. (The boy ran against the wall.)
  • Ohne das Leben gibt es nichts. (Without the life, there is nothing.)
  • Ich ging um den Baum herum. (I went around the tree.)

Akkusativ/Dativ - ~80% of Verbs use Akkusativ, so memorize the Dativ verbs.

This was a great tip from a teacher! There are MANY verbs that then have Akkusativ. "Ich habe den Ball." or "Ich sehe den Baum."  show that habe (haben) and sehe (sehen) will be followed by Akkusativ. But remember, that there are some verbs that will be followed by Dativ. For example:
  • gratulieren - Ich gratuliere dem Jungen. (I congratulate the boy.)
  • helfen - Ich helfe den Müttern. (I help the mothers.)
  • danken - Ich danke der Lehrerin. (I thank the (female) teacher.)
  • antworten - Ich antworte der Person. (I answer the person.)
  • zuhören - Du hörst mir nicht zu! (You do not listen to me!)
  • schmecken - Das Essen schmeckt dem Essenskritiker wunderbar. (The meal tastes wonderful to the food critic.)
  • gefallen - Das gefällt dem Mann. (The man likes that.)
There are different lists everywhere that shows the Dativ, and here is a list I like from Easy Deutsch: https://en.easy-deutsch.de/list-dative-verbs/.

Dativ - aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu

More word clues! The words aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, and zu are always Dativ, or as my German teachers would say, "Immer Dativ!" The 7 words are in alphabetical order and you can also memorize them! Here are some examples:
  • Die Kinder rennen aus dem Park. (The children run out of the park.)
  • Sie werden (beim) bei dem Arzt untersucht. (You get checkups at the doctor.)
  • Mein Vater geht jeden Tag mit dem Hund spazieren. (My dad go for a walk with the dog every day.)
  • Nach der Schule mache ich meine Hausaufgaben. (After school I do my homework.)
  • Seit dem Corona-Virus bin ich nicht mehr nach draußen gegangen. (Since the corona virus, I have not gone outside.)
  • Sie hat ihr Geschenk nicht von dem Mann bekommen. (She didn't get her present from the man.)
  • Wir gehen (zum) zu dem Schwimmbad. (We go to the swimming pool.)
Notice that the bei and zu examples have combined the preposition with the article. So bei and dem becomes beim. Zu and dem becomes zum. Yes, another layer of difficulty, but you can do it!

Genativ - It's not frequent and it's possessive!

Genativ is the less used of the cases, but it's still important to know. This case is used in the possessive and makes more sense with examples.

"The pet of the girl is a dog." or "The girl's pet is a dog." So who possesses the pet? Who's pet is it? It's the pet of the girl. The girl is Genativ and the same with the other sentence. Even though it looks a little different, it's still about Possession. German sentence: Das Haustier des Mädchens ist ein Hund.


And so these are some of the tips that help me figure out which article to use. Of course, you still need to remember the gender of the word, which is another struggle. But oh how sweet the victory when you can say a perfect German grammatically correct sentence. Until next time, stay happy and healthy.

German Exercise for the Week

4 German Cases Übung (Level: A2)
In this exercise, you'll get some practice with figuring out the correct cases and articles.

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