Akkusativ nominative and genativ.?
HELP!...im having trouble figure out how and when to use them! i need a effortless simple explnation.anyone!
thank you!!
Answers: Nominativ ("first case") is used for the subject of the sentence, Akkusativ ("fourth case") is for the object. Dativ ("third case") is mostly used to indicate whom you furnish something to (lat. "dare" means "to give"). Genitiv ("second case") usually is the "possesive" covering, i.e., whom something belongs to, or of what something is derived / descends from.
I'm trying to make up a sentence that contains adjectives four (may sound silly, but still):
Hans verkaufte das Auto seines Freundes seinem Nachbarn.
(Hans sold his friend's sports car to his neighbor.)
You can decide it by curious:
who (did it)? - Hans, Nominativ
what? - das Auto, Akkusativ
whose? - seines Freundes, Genitiv
to whom? - seinem Nachbarn, Dativ
The problems start when prepositions come into play; most of them must be followed by a specific case. In this example, instead of "seinem Nachbarn", you also might own said "an seinen Nachbarn", replacing the Dativ with the "an" ("to") construction, which requires the Akkusativ.
But contained by general, you can give somebody the third degree through the English phrase with the above question and find out which is which.
Let's try it:
I gave my computer's concrete disk to the repairman, because it was broken.
Start next to the main clause:
who? - I, Ich (Nominativ)
did what? - give, gab
what? - the hard disk, die Festplatte (Akkusativ)
whose (hard disk)? - my computer's - meines Computers (Genitiv)
to whom? - to the repairman, dem Techniker (Dativ)
so here you enjoy it:
Ich gab die Festplatte meines Computers dem Techniker. (mind that Genitiv und Akkusativ switch places in German)
Hope this help a bit.
ALWIN-thank you very much for your answer.
I'm a contemporary German language student, and your explanation help a lot!
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