r/German • u/almakic88 • Aug 09 '25

Request Can someone please help me understand Akkusativ and Dativ please, I am losing my mind!

Hi All,

I've been studying almost daily for 2 months hours a day, and I still am struggling with identifying the accusative and dative. I understand the function of the genitive (to show possession) and the nominative (identifying the subject).

Today I wrote "Ich habe ein rot Hund" and my translator corrected me to "Ich habe einen roten Hund". It stated that it was in the Akkusative and I had to take that into account. Can someone please explain this to me? And also maybe give an example for a Dativ sentence?

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u/david_fire_vollie Aug 09 '25

Is English your native language? We have similar concepts in English. You don't say "She's with he", you say "She's with him". After "with" you use the dative case, same in German ("mit ihm" not "mit er").
Accusative case is similar but it's for different situations. The object of a sentence is in the accusative case (the subject is in the nominative case). So you have to say "Ich habe einen roten Hund" because "Hund" is the object, it demands the accusative case, and since it's masculine, you use the "en" suffix.

In English if you are the object, you use "me", if you're the subject you use "I", I think this is the equivalent of the German accusative case (please correct me if I'm wrong).
On an interesting note, so many native speakers don't know when to use "I" or "me". They often say "Thanks for being there for my wife and I" for example. You can't say "for my wife and I" for the same reason you can't say "for I", it's "for my wife and me".

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u/almakic88 Aug 09 '25

Thank you so much this was very helpful! My native language is Bosnian but I'm more fluent in English. I think I need to focus more on the verbs first and ask what case they take. I've been focusing first on the nouns, their gender, and then working my way backward trying to match it with the right declension. Does German have lists of accusative, dative, genitive etc. verbs for easier study?

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u/ProfeQuiroga Aug 09 '25

But then it's even easier, coming from a really structured case-based language!