How often have you promised yourself to start doing something next Monday, next month… next year? But then either they didn’t even try to get down to business, or soon everything was abandoned. So it is with learning a foreign language: at first we are full of enthusiasm, and then the first difficulties begin to arise - and we begin to look for an excuse to do nothing.
And if many people still learned English with grief in half, then cases in German scare away almost everyone at the very beginning of learning. However, if you think about it, it's not all that scary. After all, our native language is Russian. And it has as many as six cases and three genders of the singular. Also, forget about the plural. And in German everything is the same, but there are only four cases, how can you not cope? So let's get started right now.
Unlike Russian, cases in German are expressed with the help of the article, not the ending of the noun. As for adjectives and pronouns, their endingagrees on cases, but the priority in their expression is still given to articles. The endings rather reflect the noun being defined. So, there are the following cases of the German language:
- Nominative (Nominativ) - expresses the subject or object,
- Genitive (Genetiv) - if other cases in German are used in a number of cases, then this one clearly indicates belonging and answers the question “whose?”.
- Dative (Dativ) - it is also most often the Russian instrumental, and sometimes even the prepositional case. While other cases in German are mostly similar to Russian, "Dativ" requires close attention. In general, it is used for the object to which the action is directed in the sentence, and for the circumstance that answers the question "where?".
- Accusative (Akkusativ) - mainly used to express the object to which the action of the object in the German sentence is directed. It can also express a circumstance if it answers the question "where?".
producing action in this sentence. Also used for an application that explains the subject, predicate (nominal predicate) and in address. Those. the German "Nominativ" is completely equivalent to the Russian "colleague".
As mentioned above, cases in German are expressed through articles, so for ease of understanding, I offer you a table with changing articles by case.
| Case | Questions | Masculine | Feminine | Neutral | Plural |
| Nominative | who? what? | der | die | das | die |
| Genitive | whose? | des | der | des | der |
| Dative | who? what? where? | dem | der | dem | den |
| Accusative | whom? what? where? | den | die | das | die |
- the ending -s is also added to the noun;
- ending -n is added to the noun.
| Case | Question | Masculine | Feminine | Neutral | Plural |
| Nominative | who? what? | ein | eine | ein | - |
| Genitive | whose? | eines | einer | eines | - |
| Dative | who? what? where? | einem | einer | einem | - |
| Accusative | whom? what? where? | einen | eine | ein | - |
Now that we have de alt with the basic questions about how cases are used in German, it's time to get to the fun part -prepositions. After all, it is often they who influence the use of one or another case. And they are easy to learn!
| Genetiv | wegen, während, unweit, trotz, längs, (an-)statt, längs |
| Dativ | zu, von, seit, nach, mit, gegenüber, entgegen, bei, ausser, aus |
| Akkusativ | um, ohne, für, gegen, entlang, durch |
As you can see, cases in German are still amenable to study, and their use is even more logical than in Russian. So go ahead - and remember that everything here depends only on you.
