In order to understand how to use the accusative case and why you need to use it, you first need to understand what cases even are. While Wikipedia will tell you some complicated definition, the basic idea is that cases identify the way in which a noun or pronoun is used. It generally does this through the use of articles such as “der”, “die” and “das” or adjective endings (more on that later in this presentation).
In German the grammatical cases and the articles which represent them allow you to move around nouns throughout the sentence without affecting the meaning. In the examples above, you can see that we use different words in different cases in the German sentences, each of which can be used at the beginning of the sentence, but the English translation never changes. That is because in German this is possible, because of the case system, but in English, the article “the” doesn’t allow this flexibility. Word order dictates meaning in English, whereas in German the case system helps express how a word is being used.
Now that we know what cases are, we can get into the accusative stuff. The accusative case is primarily used for direct objects. A direct object is the person or thing that is acted upon in a sentence. In the examples above, the words highlighted in red are the subjects of their respective sentences. This means that they are the ones acting or doing something in those sentences. Those words are in the nominative case, which is basically the default case. The words highlighted in green are the direct objects. They are being acted upon by the subject. They are being “verbed”. This makes them accusative. This is represented by the accusative masculine article “den” and the accusative personal pronoun “dich”. Both of those will be explained in more detail later in this lesson.
In the above examples we have two new subjects in the nominative case “der Mann” and “das Mädchen”. The direct objects are “den Traktor” and “das Buch”. In the first example “den Traktor” indicates the accusative case, as “den” is the accusative version of “der” or the masculine article. “das Buch” on the other hand, doesn’t indicate the accusative case with the article, so we have to rely on the word order to tell us the use, like we would in English.
Above you will see your first grammar chart. This one shows you the definite articles, which are translated as “the” in English. The only change from nominative to accusative is in the masculine form, which changes from “der” to “den”.
There are several words that take the same endings as the definite articles. They are “dieser” (this, these, those), “jeder” (every), “manche” (some), “solche” (such, that kind of), welcher” (which), and “alle” (all). As you can see the endings are the same. The examples below show these words in action in the nominative and accusative cases.
The definite articles also double as relative and demonstrative pronouns. The main difference between relative pronouns and demonstrative pronouns is that demonstrative pronouns are generally not used in the same sentence in which the noun to which they refer is used, while the relative pronouns are used within a relative clause, which is attached to a main clause that includes the noun to which the relative pronoun refers. This is illustrated in the sentences above. There are no examples above for demonstrative pronouns, but if you move the relative clause into a sentence of its own, you now have a demonstrative pronoun.
Indefinite articles are words for “a” or “an”. They identify non-specific things. The chart above shows you the difference between nominative and accusative. Again, the only change is for the masculine form, which changes from “ein” to “einen”. The plural doesn’t have an indefinite article, as it wouldn’t make sense to say “a books”, but there are several words that take the same endings as the indefinite articles (listed in the next slide). This is the reason for the (k) in the plural form. This indicates that it could be any of the words on the list of indefinite article-like things.
I’m pretty sure this slide is self explanatory, or at least I explained what it is in the previous slide. After this slide you will find two more slides, which give examples of these words in action. The first slide is full of the real indefinite articles. The second slide shows you the indefinite article-like things (mostly possessive words). Notice again that the only one that changes from nominative to accusative is the masculine form, which changes from no ending to -en.
Adjective endings in German change a bit based on what precedes the adjective and the case and gender in which the noun is used. All of the nominative singular forms take an -e as well as the accusative forms for feminine and neuter nouns. All of the plural forms and the accusative masculine forms require -en on the adjective.
If the adjective is preceded by an indefinite article, there are a few differences. Mainly, the gender identifying letter at the end of the article is transferred from the article onto the adjective. This means that the masculine and neuter forms in the nominative case now have an -r and -s respectively. In the accusative case, the masculine adjective and article still have -en, but the neuter form retains the -s it had in the nominative case. The rest of the endings are the same as they were with definite articles. The next two slides show examples of both of these categories.
Certain nouns in German require either -n or -en at the end of them in any case other than the nominative case. There are a ton of words that do this. They are called “weak nouns”. Below are a few examples of these nouns in action.
There are some ways to figure out if a noun is a weak noun. The vast majority of weak nouns are masculine nouns that end with -e. There are a lot of weak nouns with Latin or Greek endings like the ones listed above. The most vague and also least reliable category are those that are single syllable masculine nouns. There are quite a few weak nouns that fall into this category, but a lot of single syllable masculine nouns are not weak nouns, which makes it difficult to tell. The more you memorize these the better your ear for this will be trained and you will eventually be able to figure out if a noun is weak or not just by looking at it.
Most of the time when you use a time element in a German sentence without a preposition, it is used in the accusative case. As long as the time mentioned is a specific time and not an indefinite time. If you say “one day” in German, it isn’t a specific time, so you use the genitive case. If you say “today”, “this afternoon”, “every day” or any other time, you need the accusative case. The examples above show this in action.
You are likely well aware of what the nominative case personal pronouns are, as they are the ones that you need in order to learn to conjugate German verbs. In the accusative case most of them change, which you can see in the chart above. In the next slide, you will see these pronouns in action.
A lot of people don’t realize that question words are actually pronouns. Their official name is “interrogative pronouns”. If you are asking a question about people, you need either “wer” (who) or “wen” (whom). The former is used to ask about people in the nominative case and the latter for people in the accusative case. The question word “was” (what) can be used to inquire about the nominative or accusative cases. Above, you can see examples of this.
Personal pronouns and reflexive pronouns only differ in two places. Instead of individual gender specific pronouns for “er”, “sie” and “es”, you only need one pronoun for all of them, “sich”. For both “sie” meaning “they” and the formal “you” “Sie”, you use “sich”. Reflexive pronouns are used to restate the subject as an object. This can be done as a direct object, which is the focus for this lesson, as the uses as an indirect object would require the dative case. Certain verbs in German require or are often used with a reflexive pronoun. A lot of the confusion about reflexive pronouns in German is that they often don’t translate to sentences with reflexives in English. You simply have to memorize which verbs require these reflexive pronouns and then use them. The reflexive pronoun should always match the subject of the sentence. Think of it as the subject being reflected around the verb. Don’t forget, reflections don’t look exactly like the original image, which is also true of these reflexive pronouns. Below you will find two slides of examples with reflexive pronouns. The English translations mostly don’t have a reflexive, but if you were to force on into the sentence, you would put it where the parentheses are.
There are a lot of prepositions in German. Some of them require you to use the accusative case after them. The prepositions that always take the accusative case are listed above with their translations. I also included the mnemonic device “BO FUDGE”. Think of it as if you had body odor (BO) so bad that it physically manifested itself in the form of fudge. Yes, that is incredibly gross, but it does help you put a memory tool to the prepositions that take the accusative case. They can be seen in action in the following slides.
Be careful with the preposition “entlang”. When it is used after the object (technically called a postposition instead of a preposition), it uses the accusative case. When “entlang” is used before the object, you need the genitive case.
One of the most requested video topics on my YouTube channel is the two-way prepositions (Wechselpräpositionen). These prepositions can take the accusative or dative cases. Most German teachers over simplify the use of these prepositions and tell you if there is motion use accusative and if there is no motion use dative. The problem with this thinking is immediately apparent when you ask yourself which case to use if you are playing a game on a field. Playing clearly means you are moving, so a lot of student assume this means you have to use the accusative case. Unfortunately, the dative case is actually needed here, as you aren’t changing location, which is what the teachers really mean to say. If there is a change in the location or the state of being, you use the accusative case with these prepositions. To be more precise, if the person or thing to which the prepositional phrase is referring is moving from one location to another or changing its state of being through the action created in the prepositional phrase, you need the accusative case. If there is no change of location or state, you need the dative case.
When using the verbs listed above, you usually use the accusative case with these prepositions. This is due to the fact that these verbs require a direct object, which is being moved from one place to another. It is a pretty good indicator if you watch for these verbs. Below you will find a few examples using the two-way prepositions in a variety of situations.
The term “verbs with fixed prepositions” is misleading at best. These prepositions don’t have to be used with these verbs. They are commonly used with them, however, which is why this term came to be. Sometimes, such as in the examples above, their use is pretty straight forward. The preposition requires a particular case, you use that case. That isn’t always the case, however.
If you use a two-way preposition with one of these verbs, it isn’t always apparent which case to use, as the verb doesn’t immediately scream motion or non-motion. In these cases, it is best to memorize which case to use as you encounter these verbs.
Comments