German grammar by topic › The four German cases, explained

The four German cases, explained

German shows a noun's job in the sentence with its case: the subject is in the nominative, the direct object in the accusative, the indirect object in the dative, and the owner in the genitive. Mostly it's the article that changes, not the noun.

Because the case marks who does what, German word order can move things around without changing the meaning: Den Hund sieht der Mann still says that the man sees the dog.

The essentials

Nominative for the subject: Der Hund schläft.
Accusative for the direct object, and only the masculine changes: Ich sehe den Hund, die Katze, das Kind.
Dative for the indirect object, the person something is given to or done for: Ich gebe dem Kind einen Apfel.
Genitive for the owner, mostly in writing: das Auto meines Vaters. In speech, von + dative is common: das Auto von meinem Vater.
Prepositions decide the case too: für and ohne take the accusative, mit and bei the dative, wegen and trotz the genitive.

Every lesson on this topic

Each lesson has a full explanation, examples you can listen to, and exercises with answers.

A1 (the A1 course)

The accusative: den, einen, keinen: The direct object takes the accusative, and only masculine nouns show it: der → den, ein → einen.
Accusative pronouns: mich, dich, ihn: me, you, him, her, it, us, them: the object pronouns.
The dative: dem, der, den: The dative marks the person something is given to, and follows dative prepositions.
Dative pronouns: mir, dir, ihm: to me, to you, to him: and the verbs helfen, gefallen, gehören that always take them.

A2 (the A2 course)

The genitive: des Mannes, der Frau, Annas Auto: Show who something belongs to with the genitive, with a name + s, or with von + dative in speech.
Masculine weak nouns: der Student, den Studenten: Some masculine nouns add -n or -en in every case except the nominative singular.

B1 (the B1 course)

wegen, trotz, während, statt + genitive: Say because of, despite, during and instead of with a noun, in writing and in speech.

B2 (the B2 course)

Genitive prepositions and set phrases: angesichts, aufgrund, mithilfe: Use the genitive prepositions of written German (angesichts, aufgrund, innerhalb, mithilfe, bezüglich) and set phrases like eines Tages and meines Erachtens.

In the app, these lessons are taught one idea at a time with audio, practised with questions that explain the rule when you slip, and brought back for review on later days.

Learn it in the app, free Find your level