Another area that German is more complex than English, is cases. In English, we don't have any! However, there are 4 cases in the German language! Nominative(The Nominative Case is used for the subject of a sentence and for predicate noun), accusative(The Accusative Case is used for most direct objects), dative(he Dative Case is used for indirect objects and for the objects of a few verbs (called Dative Verbs) that you will have to memorize) and genitive(The Genitive Case is used to show possession or close relation, used for the objects of some prepositions, and indefinite time expressions).



When the noun is the subject of the sentence, the nominative case is used. What changes for each case are the articles. Nominative is the easiest to remember, as the articles used are the same as the ones taught above. ie "der", "die", "das", "ein", "eine", "ein". Obviously, which article is used depends on the gender of the noun.

Since English does not have the same case markers (der/den), it must depend on word order. If you say "Man bites dog" in English, rather than "Dog bites man," you change the meaning. In German the word order can be changed for emphasis (as above)?without altering the basic meaning.

The accusative case is a little more complicated. It is used when for the object of the sentence. In this case, "der" turns into "den" and "ein" into "einen".

The dative case is used to the indirect subject of the sentence. In the dative case, "der" turns into "dem", "die" turns into "der" and "das" turns into "dem". Also, "ein" turns into "einem", "eine" turns into "einer" and "ein" turns into "einem".

The final case (yes that's all) is called the genitive. It is used when you refer to posession. Check the table below for all the correct forms when a certain case is applied.