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Important! : Later on in the course, you'll learn how to apply this knowledge, and it'll all seem to come together. For now, focus on memorizing the information in the tables, making each list a mantra in your head. Especially know the prepositions and their meanings! This will help you tremendously later. Trust the process!
Sein : To be
Sein : To be
Much more detail about German verbs will follow in a later chapter. However, for now you should learn the most common German verb, sein (to be), in its present tense. Sein in its present form shows up a lot, and it's irregular, so you should memorize the conjugations now to make life easier down the road.
Introduction
Introduction
In German, there are 4 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive. They show their colors in the articles (in English: the, a, these, etc.).
Nominative Case
Nominative Case
The nominative case is applied to the subject of the sentence: the person/thing that's doing the action, the verb.
Der Mann ist groß.
The man is big (tall).
The subject of this sentence is 'der Mann' (the man), because he is the one 'doing the being.' In other words, the subject is being described by the word 'ist' (is).
Common uses of the nominative case are with the verbs "sein: to be (ex. I am, you are)" and "werden: to become," because these verbs are talking specifically about the 'main person' of the sentence, who is carrying out the action.
The Accusative Case
The Accusative Case
The accusative case is applied ot the direct object of the sentence, which is the person/thing that's being affected by the verb. The subject is doing the action, which is being received by the direct object. If you want to know if a person/object is accusative, ask yourself: "whom?".
There are certain prepositions after which the noun that follows will always be accusative. Here's a list of them:
There are certain prepositions after which the noun that follows is accusative if and only if there is motion involved with the noun.
If the noun that follows it is NOT involved with motion, then these prepositions are being used to describe their location, position, or static condition, and the noun that follows it will be dative instead of accusative. Here is a list of the prepositions:
Dative Case
Dative Case
That last table of prepositions was a direct segway into the next case: Dative.
The dative case is applied to the indirect object of the sentence, which is the person/thing for whom or to whom something is done.
Accusative and dative are often mixed up. The easiest way (I found) to make sure that you're using the right case for someone/something is to memorize the prepositions that each case goes after.
The prepositions in the previous table signals that the noun should be dative when the preposition shows the location, position, or static condition of the noun.
Here's a list of prepositions after which the noun will always be dative:
Genitive Case
Genitive Case
Last, but not least, the genitive case! Now, the genitive case may be the most 'disliked' case out of all four. That is, people nowadays like to replace the genitive case with other phrases, which we will go over shortly.
The genitive case is used to show possession someone/something has of someone/something.
Here's the list of prepositions after which genitive is used:
Like I said, genitive is usually avoided in speech nowadays and replaced with certain phrases:
Genitive is also avoided by using possessive adjectives (ex. my thing) or possessive pronouns (ex. mine).
Possessive adjectives: used with the noun. All 16 ways to indicate possession (depending on the case and gender of the noun being possessed) using possessive adjectives are listed here with the 'mein-' root. You can replace the 'mein-' root with any of the other roots listed above, giving you 96 different possessive adjectives!
I want to say 'this is my dog.'
Dog --> der Hund
My --> 'mein' root
'is' is 'to be,' which is a nominative verb
Calls for 'mein,' which is the nominative & masculine possessive adjective for 'my'
Das ist mein Hund.
Possessive pronouns: replace the pronoun/noun and makes it possessed. Examples: mine, yours, his, etc.
Extra: The following are the personal pronouns. After the actual specific name of the person/thing is introduced, you can replace that with the appropriate personal pronoun below.
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