German cases

[ladida]

hi, i'm having trouble understanding German cases, i know there are 4 and they are :Nominative,accusative, dative and genitive... but no matter how much i try i might start to understand but then next moment i'm confused again. i read they work with the genders and the nouns in the thing being said....but i'm confused on when to use what word for "the" and "a/an" ....any help, much appreciated..

[Sprachprofi]

A quick overview of the cases:
Nominative = dictionary form, also used for subjects
Genitive = for possession, English uses 's or "of" for this
Dative = for indirect objects and, after prepositions, for locations (in der Kirche =
in the church)
Accusative = for direct objects and, after prepositions, for directions (in die Kirche
= into the church)

This pre-supposes that you're able to tell what an indirect and direct object is. Direct objects are the ones that other languages would place without a preposition, while indirect objects would have a preposition ("a" in Spanish) in other languages. However, the mapping is not perfect; it never is for prepositions; and English messes with it additionally because you can say "I give him the present" just as well as "I give the present to him", and only the latter shows you that "him" would be indirect (presumably Dative in German) and "the present" would be direct (presumably Accusative in German). As another rule of thumb, Dative is almost exclusively used for people or animals, not inanimate objects. Apart from prepositions for locations and directions, there are a lot of other prepositions, for example "mit", or "von", and for those you have to learn the correct case by heart (Dative in this case).

Best leave the detailed learning of the different forms of der/die/das until you're at an intermediate stage, because otherwise it can hamper your ability to have a conversation in German. GermanPod101 covers each case in great detail in the intermediate series.

[ladida]

hi, thanks for the quick overview, i much appreciate it. ok i'll try to focus on the other things and wait till i get to intermediate, thanks again from casey.

A quick overview of the cases:
Nominative = dictionary form, also used for subjects
Genitive = for possession, English uses 's or "of" for this
Dative = for indirect objects and, after prepositions, for locations (in der Kirche =
in the church)
Accusative = for direct objects and, after prepositions, for directions (in die Kirche
= into the church)

This pre-supposes that you're able to tell what an indirect and direct object is. Direct objects are the ones that other languages would place without a preposition, while indirect objects would have a preposition ("a" in Spanish) in other languages. However, the mapping is not perfect; it never is for prepositions; and English messes with it additionally because you can say "I give him the present" just as well as "I give the present to him", and only the latter shows you that "him" would be indirect (presumably Dative in German) and "the present" would be direct (presumably Accusative in German). As another rule of thumb, Dative is almost exclusively used for people or animals, not inanimate objects. Apart from prepositions for locations and directions, there are a lot of other prepositions, for example "mit", or "von", and for those you have to learn the correct case by heart (Dative in this case).

Best leave the detailed learning of the different forms of der/die/das until you're at an intermediate stage, because otherwise it can hamper your ability to have a conversation in German. GermanPod101 covers each case in great detail in the intermediate series.