what type of words are in front of the noun.Baby) is the indirect object in the dative ‘slot’, you need to know the right ‘grammar flags’ (declensions) to use.īUT … heads up! Declensions change based on: In order to properly signal that a noun (e.g. ( I sing a soft lullaby to my sleepy Baby). Ich singe meine m schläfrige n Baby ein sanfte s Schlaflied vor. In German, when we put a noun into the dative ‘slot’ in our sentence, the determiner and/or adjective(s) will take declensions, such as these instances of -m, -n, -s: There are two types of words that come in front of nouns: determiners and adjectives.ĭeterminers are little words ( a, the, some, many, all, every, etc.) that tell us how many or which one.Īdjectives are words that describe some feature of the noun (e.g. In German, the indirect object in a given sentence is ‘flagged’ by little grammar changes (called declensions) to the words that come in front of the noun. So, if learn it you must, let’s do it! How the Dative Case Works in GermanĮnglish uses word order or prepositional phrases to indicate who / what is the indirect object. In English, we could say ‘forget about the dative case, you don’t truly need it!’ But in German, there’s no getting away with not using the dative case. In German, not only do we not have this flexibility but the dative case is used in many, many more ways! This second sentence has the same meaning as the first AND is just as equally an option: to give something to someone.Īnd that’s the sum of the dative case in English! It doesn’t come up often in the first place and even when it does, we can still choose to avoid the dative case and use a prepositional phrase instead. In this version, we see the prepositional phrase to Sally. Sally is the indirect object, who is the recipient of the car (direct object) being given by Frank (subject). Here, we see the dative case at work in this give someone something setup. So, this can include verbs such as to offer, to provide, to lend, to send, to answer, to command, to advise, to assure, etc. In English, we can use the dative case with verbs that are about giving/taking or speaking, in a broad sense. In English, however, we have two options: use the dative case OR use a prepositional phrase. Well, in German it’s pretty straightforward: indirect objects are put into the dative case. German uses the dative case a lot but English uses it very rarely (because we use something else instead)…īoth German and English sentences can have people/objects to/for whom action is taken.īased on our chart above, we know that those people/objects must be the indirect object, right? This is the dative case after all! Case is what we use to ‘flag’ these roles so we know who is doing what to whom. Like all the other cases ( nominative, accusative, genitive), we can think of the dative case as being a particular ‘slot’ in any given sentence that gets filled up (in this case -pun intended– with the indirect object).Īll nouns play a role in their sentences that is relative to the other nouns in the sentence. If you want to say simple, everyday, might-be-relevant-to-your-life things such as I hurt my leg, I’m feeling cold, That’s important to me, or You can kiss my ***, then you need to learn the dative case. BUT, in German, it has many, many side gigs, too. The dative case has a standard, basic function: signaling the indirect object of the sentence. If you want to be able to say more than “ Guten Morgen! Ich möchte ein Brötchen!”, then learning the dative case is essential.
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