German Cases Cheat Sheet

Below are several charts, In German, the endings change for Defini­te(The) and Indefi­nite(A) Articles. These need to be memorised, they are important, and cannot be ignored.

Personal Pronouns seem more compli­cated at first, but remember you can do it.

She, They, and You(fo­rmal) all use "­sie­/Si­e." In writing a good way to tell them apart is:

You(fo­rmal) is always uppercase "­Sie­" and comes after a verb that ends in -en.

She is typically followed by "­ist­"(is) or a verb thats has a -t endings (with exepti­ons).

They is typically followed by "­sin­d" (are) or comes before a verb that ends in -en.

Example:
kaufen Sie/Sie sind | you buy/you are
sie kauft/sie ist | she buys/she is
sie kaufen/sie sind / they buy/ they are

Sometimes you will have to go off context.

A note on Sie: I am not too sure why the verb comes before the pronoun, ive heard that its because it can be seen as more of a demand. Ive also heard that its a bit old fashioned, but take these with a grain of salt, and maybe ask a few native speakers to get their opinion.

Normative case is the simplest one, and is the subject of a sentence. This means in the thing preforming the action.

You can usually tell that something is Normative if its followed by "­Sei­n"(to be) or "­ist­"­(its) as in "This thing is someth­ing."

Examples:
Meine Mutter ist Ärzt (my mother is a doctor)

Der Fisch ist rot (the fish is red)

Der Hund beißt den Mann (the dog bites the man) Note: The man is in the accusative case

Normative is usually the subject of the sentence, but not always, keep this in mind.

The Dative case in English is known as the Indirect object, The Indirect object is used when referring to something that isnt effected by the verb. Dative is used after certain verbs and prepos­itions, these must be memorised.

Example:
Der Polizist gibt dem Fahrer einen Strafz­ettel. (The policeman is giving the driver a ticket.)

In this example the Dative case is "the driver­" as the police man is giving a ticket to him, and not giving the driver to something. Since the police man is giving the ticket that makes it the Direct Object and therefore is in Accusa­tive.

The indirect object (dative) is usually the receiver of the direct object (accus­ative).

A tip in identi­fying the Dative case is if when transl­ating "­to" can be added. "the policeman gives the ticket to the driver."

Note: in Dative every gendered article changes unlike Accusative where only Masculine changes.

The accusitave case is very veryim­por­tent. It is the Direct object, this means its effected by a Transitive Verb.

The order of the words may change compared to english word order, but as long as you have the proper accusative articles, the meaning remains clear.

Example:
Den Mann beißt der Hund. (The dog bites the man)

Whats a Transitive verb?
A Transitive Verb is a type of verb that needs to be followed by an object

Examples:
ich habe... (i have)
sie kauft... (she buys)
er kann... (he can)

These dont make sense without a second object to recieve these actions.

Examples of Non-Tr­ans­itive Verbs:

ich schlafe (i sleep)
er wartet (he waited)
sie tanzt (she danced)

These are not Transitive Verbs because you cannot sleep a man, or dance a pear, or wait a rock.

There are 2 exeptions to this rule, sein(to be) and werden(to become) They take a second object but do not count.

If you know your German Cases, a good clue is that all verbs that take the helping verb sein (to be) are intran­sitive.

A second good clue is that if their are two objects in a sentence then its likely one will be in the Accusative case.

The Genitive Case shows possession in German. There are also "­Gen­itive Prepos­iti­ons­" that will change an object into this case.

Genitive isnt commonly used, especially when speaking. Your more likely to find it in writing in my experi­ence.

Its more common to see people use "­von­"(of) and the Dative Case.

Example:
Das Auto von meinem Bruder. (My brothe­r's car of my brother.)

Noun endings change in the Genitive Case, adding -es or -s respec­tfully.

Example:
Das Auto meines Bruders (the car of my brother)

Die Bluse des Mädchens (the blouse of the girl)

Der Titel des Filmes (the title of the film)


Note: Fem and Plural nouns dont gain endings.

This is a list of things that need to be explai­ned­/shown but i couldnt find a good spot to put them

Lets use the example "Jack bought his son a car"

Jack is the subject of the sentance, therefore he would be in the Norm Case,

Jack is buying the car, not his son, therefore its in the Acc Case,

His son is the one being effected by the direct object, therefore it is in the Dative case.

When you are talking about time or distance use Accusa­tive.

Example:
"­Einen Kilome­ter­" "­Einen Monat" "­Einen Minute­n"