The woman is receiving the direct object, the present, so she goes in the dative case. Our direct object is ein Geschenk, because that is what is being given it’s in the accusative case. Here’s an example:ĭer Mann is the subject-nominative case-because he’s doing the action, and the verb geben is conjugated accordingly. The dative usually shows the receiver of the direct object. The dative case denotes indirect objects and takes it one step further. Notice how der Mann has become den Mann, showing that the man is on the receiving end of the verb “to see”. For example:ĭirect objects that are on the receiving end of an action take the accusative case. This means there are no changes and every word is just as you’ll find it in the dictionary. When nouns occur as the subject, they are in the nominative. The case of a German noun is usually determined by the context of the sentence and where the action is directed. After that, we’ll help you put declension into practice. Let’s look at some tips to help you learn all three. These three aspects are crucial to understanding proper German declension. In other words, understanding declension will push your German skills from simple stock phrases to whatever wonderful things you may want to say! How to Learn German Declension Memorizing not only the (1) case, (2) gender and (3) number of a noun, but also the corresponding grammar rules for denoting these three aspects, is crucial to understanding, speaking and writing German. Knowing the declension patterns in German helps you memorize the genders that correspond to different nouns, which is necessary when you need to include adjective endings. German grammar is all about knowing what’s going on in the sentence and being able to pick out the various parts. So remember, focus on case, gender and number! Why Learn Declension in German? To summarize: The ability to break down a sentence into its various parts will be key to German declension-who is doing what to whom, and what is the gender and number of each noun. This is what we mean by declension, changing the words before nouns in order to convey information about the noun and what it is doing in the sentence. The article den also tells us that noun Hund is a masculine, singular noun. This is what we call putting a noun in a different case. However, German instead relies on declension, meaning the words before nouns will change in order to show both who is doing the action, and who is receiving it.īoth of these sentences mean “The man feeds the dog.” But even though the second example puts the dog at the beginning of the sentence, we know that the dog is the one being fed because of the article den. We know that Mary is doing the feeding because she comes before the verb. Mary is our subject, as she feeds the ducks, and since she is performing the action-feeding, which the hungry ducks receive happily–the ducks act as our direct object.Įnglish mostly relies on word order to convey this information. The sentence “Mary fed the ducks” tells you there’s more than one duck.Īt the same time, the sentence structure-most importantly here, the verb-tells us who or what the subject is and who or what the direct object is. When you speak in English about a noun, you somehow have to denote how many you are talking about. T his involves making the case, number and gender of a noun clear. In the context of German grammar, declension means providing essential information about the nouns in a sentence and how they relate to each other.
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