Let’s go back to the example above, about the man and the dog. However, to truly understand German grammar correctly, it’s critically important. Many beginning students believe this isn’t important. Now, here’s why learning genders and cases matters. Dative (indirect object of the sentence): dem Mann.Accusative (direct object of the sentence): den Mann.Nominative (subject of the sentence): der Mann.Genitive is possessive: It literally means “of the man,” like “Hier ist die Frau des Mannes.” (Here is the wife of the man.) “Of the” is implied in the word “des.” In the dative case, using the same example, this becomes “dem Mann.” In the genitive, it becomes “des Mannes.”ĭative is the indirect object. There are two more cases in German, the dative and genitive cases, and each will change the “the” word. However, the determinant, the word for “the” changes to “den.” This change tells you that “Mann” is no longer the subject of the sentence. However, once you move over to the accusative case, this becomes “den Mann.” It’s the same German noun: Mann. Nominative is the subject case of the sentence, like “the man” in “The man is a native English speaker. For example, the word for “man” in German (der Mann) is masculine. They are either masculine, feminine or neuter (neutral). Then, we’ll talk about why this matters in German sentence structure and word order.Īll nouns in German have genders. Let’s talk about both of these elements separately first. English has cases, but not to the extent that German does. The German language has both genders, like Spanish and French, and cases. However, German is different for a couple of reasons. Then, the sentence takes on an entirely different meaning. In English, you have to say sentences in a pretty specific order. First, it’s important to note that, unlike English, German is not a word-order language.
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