Dative Case - German

German

In general, the dative is used to mark the indirect object of a German sentence. In the following example dem Mann is in the dative:

• Ich schickte dem Mann das Buch. (I sent the book to the man)

Certain German prepositions require the dative: aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, and gegenüber. Other prepositions (an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, and zwischen) may be used with dative (indicating current location), or accusative (indicating direction toward something). Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch (dative: the book is lying on the table), but Ich lege das Buch auf den Tisch (accusative: I put the book on the table). In addition, those German prepositions that require the genitive in formal language, tend to be used with the dative in contemporary colloquial German; for example, "because of the weather" is often expressed as "wegen dem Wetter" instead of the formally correct "wegen des Wetters".

Note that the concept of an indirect object may be rendered by a prepositional phrase. In this case, the noun's or pronoun's case is determined by the preposition, NOT by its function in the sentence. Consider this sentence:

• Ich sandte das Buch zum Verleger. 'I sent the book to the editor.'

Here, the subject, Ich, is in the nominative case, the direct object, das Buch, is in the accusative case, and zum Verleger is in the dative case, since zu always requires the dative (zum is a contraction of zu + dem). However:

• Ich habe das Buch an meinen Freund (accusative) weitergegeben. 'I forwarded the book to my friend.' (weitergeben = lit.: to give further).

In this sentence, Freund is the indirect object, but, because it follows an (direction), the accusative is required, not the dative.

All of the articles change in the dative case.

Some German verbs require the dative for their direct objects. Common examples include folgen, helfen, and antworten. In each case, the direct object of the verb is rendered in dative. For example:

• Meine Freunde helfen mir. (My friends help me)

The dative case is also used with reflexive (sich) verbs when specifying what part of the self the verb is being done to:

• Ich wasche mich. - accusative (I wash myself)
• Ich wasche mir die Hände. - dative (I wash my hands, literally "I wash to myself the hands")

Cf. the respective accord in French: "Les enfants se sont lavés" (the children have washed themselves) vs. "Les enfants se sont lavé" "les mains" (... their hands).

Adjective endings also change in the dative case. Another factor that determines the endings of adjectives is whether the adjective is being used after a definite article (the), after an indefinite article (a/an), or without any article before the adjective (many green apples).