The four German cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive

German marks the role of a noun in the sentence with its case. English does this mostly with word order ("the dog bites the man"), but German changes the article instead. This is why Der Hund beißt den Mann and Den Mann beißt der Hund mean the same thing: den marks the man as the object.

What each case does

Case	Role	Question	Example
nominative	subject	who or what?	Der Mann schläft.
accusative	direct object	whom or what?	Ich sehe den Mann.
dative	indirect object	to/for whom?	Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch.
genitive	possession	whose?	Das Auto des Mannes.

The article table

Case	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
nominative	der	die	das	die
accusative	den	die	das	die
dative	dem	der	dem	den
genitive	des	der	des	der

Only the masculine changes between nominative and accusative (der becomes den). Feminine, neuter and plural stay the same. The same pattern holds for ein: ein, einen, einem, eines for masculine, and eine, eine, einer, einer for feminine. Two more details: the dative plural adds -n to the noun (den Kindern), and the genitive of masculine and neuter nouns usually adds -(e)s (des Mannes, des Kindes).

Prepositions and cases

Each preposition demands a fixed case. Learn them in groups.

Case	Prepositions	Example
accusative	durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, bis	Das ist für den Lehrer.
dative	aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, gegenüber	Ich fahre mit dem Bus.
genitive	wegen, trotz, während, statt	Wegen des Regens bleibe ich.

Two-way prepositions

Nine prepositions take the accusative or the dative depending on whether there is movement: an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen.

Question	Meaning	Case	Example
wo?	where (location)	dative	Ich bin in der Stadt.
wohin?	where to (movement)	accusative	Ich gehe in die Stadt.

More examples: Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch (it lies there), but Ich lege das Buch auf den Tisch (I put it there). If the sentence answers wo, use the dative. If it answers wohin, use the accusative.

Genitive or von + dative?

The genitive shows possession: das Haus meines Vaters, die Farbe der Tür. In everyday speech, Germans often prefer von + dative: das Haus von meinem Vater. Both are correct. In writing and formal contexts the genitive is common, and the four prepositions wegen, trotz, während, statt are normally used with it. In speech you will often hear them with the dative too (wegen dem Regen), but the genitive is the standard.

Names add a plain -s without an article: Annas Auto, Peters Buch.

Common mistakes

Using the nominative after a verb of movement. Wrong: Ich gehe in der Küche. Right: Ich gehe in die Küche.
Forgetting that the dative plural ends in -n. Wrong: mit den Kinder. Right: mit den Kindern.
Using the accusative after mit. Wrong: mit den Freund. Right: mit dem Freund.
Changing the feminine in the accusative. Die Frau stays die Frau: Ich sehe die Frau.
Using an apostrophe for the genitive of names. Wrong: Anna's Auto. Right: Annas Auto.

A practical tip

Learn each verb with its case. Most verbs take the accusative (sehen, kaufen, haben), but some take the dative: helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören. Write helfen + dat. in your notes: Ich helfe dem Mann.

Practice

Decide first whether the noun is a subject, an object, or follows a preposition.

Gender comes first: see der, die or das. To put these phrases into sentences, read about verb position.