As usual, your explanations are clear and easy to understand. Thank you. I am currently B1 level but still have trouble identifying the Akkusativ vs Dativ in all sentences. This has made it better - aber ich muss noch mehr üben machen.

@bausteine

3 ай бұрын

Danke! Ja, üben muss man immer! The dative is used for quite a few useful things - so learn what they are. Then most other things will be in the accusative (assuming they’re not the subjects).

@michaelburggraf2822

3 ай бұрын

As a German I have to admit that I'm finding the proper case usually intuitively. If I have doubts about the correct case I'm using the following questions: Nominativ: wer oder was? Genitiv: wessen? Dativ: wem oder was? Akusativ: wen oder was? The first interogative particle is used for persons, the "was" for things. However for finding out which case is needed the first one is more useful. The case is "der Fall" in German. In elementary school I was learning the cases as: Nominativ: wer-Fall Genitiv: wessen-Fall Dativ: wem-Fall Akusativ: wen-Fall The last two are a bit difficult to tell. Maybe a bit of old Latin can help: The term Dativ originates from the latin verb dare, to give. I'm giving the apple to the child. Ich gebe dem Kind den Apfel. Ich gebe wem den Apfel? Dem Kind (Dativ). Ich gebe dem Kind wen oder was? Den Apfel (Akusativ). Akusativ is derived from latin too, meaning to call, to accuse. Maybe that example is helping a bit at getting a "feeling" for finding the correct case. However, I'm afraid that all explanation will only help so far. In the end it's simply a matter of learning and getting used to it by exercising.

@bausteine

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for the useful tips! This is certainly how most German speaking people learn about the cases and how to decide on the correct one. Unfortunately many English speaking learners have trouble with questions like wer/wen/wem because you’re asking them to use the very thing they don’t understand. As soon as you have that intuitive feel for the language then it makes of course a lot more sense. Danke fürs Vorbeischauen! BB

@michaelburggraf2822

3 ай бұрын

@@bausteine I've translated my example as: I'm giving the apple to the child. I was tempted to write: I'm giving the child the apple. However, I wasn't sure if that was grammatically correct. The example is interesting since it shows how distinction by case allows for a more liberal order of parts of a sentences. Ich gebe den Apfel dem Kind, would be similarly correct in German. In the latter case emphasis would be on what's happening to the apple. In the former case emphasis would be on what's happening to the child. You could use both sentences interchangeably too. In that particular example the difference isn't really big. However a native German speaker would probably care about it while speaking. BTW, your explanations were beautifully clear.

@bausteine

3 ай бұрын

Actually, the example „I’m giving the apple to the child“ is a really good one because it clearly shows what the dative does: it often conveys the equivalent of „to someone“ or „for someone“. Either way is of course correct.