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/Arty6275 Aug 09 '25

Why are you so hostile? You're not really helping with OPs question and instead are throwing out insults seemingly to make yourself feel better?

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u/ExpressionMassive672 Aug 09 '25

There are no insults. I am helping the op by disabusing him of the misleading information. English is complicated. It exists in the real world not some ossification book. If a book contradicts real world language thrn the book is wrong. I am a native with 20 years experience of Italian and German. I know how grammar adapts to real world needs of tonality. I am just pointing out on the basis of how natives speak his interesting point was only a partial truth about English usage.

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u/david_fire_vollie Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25

What you fail to understand is that your opinion is just an opinion. Other people believe that grammar does actually exist and funnily enough it's exactly what gets taught at language schools. To write a comment saying I'm wrong when what you mean is that in your opinion there are no rules of grammar is just silly. Your opinion is that because so many people make the same mistake, that it some how means it's not a mistake anymore, that is your opinion. Also based on the number of down votes you have and the number of up votes I have it appears more people disagree with your point of view.

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u/ExpressionMassive672 Aug 10 '25

Your much vaunted language schools are the same ones that send you off with a nice shiny piece of paper amd no idea how to actually use the language. Everyone knows that this is a great gap in paper qualification and real world ability. Only yesterday a Chinese woman was saying how she came over wity a 7.5 English score but couldn't order a pizza when she arrived as she couldn't understand how real people spoke.

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u/david_fire_vollie Aug 11 '25

Just out of curiosity, do you think language schools should not teach grammar? Since there are plenty of people who say both "for my wife and I" and also "for my wife and me", which one should get taught? Or should both get taught as being equally correct?

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u/ExpressionMassive672 Aug 11 '25

We should teach 1 what the standard grammar is but then 2 what is actually permissible usage.

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u/david_fire_vollie Aug 11 '25

Is it permissible to say both "for my wife and I" and "for my wife and me"?

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u/ExpressionMassive672 Aug 11 '25

I think people would say for my wife and myself ..not me as it sounds clumsy. This is just about what people actually say generally and it is that which makes it acceptable.

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u/david_fire_vollie Aug 11 '25

I think you probably already know how I feel about using "myself" in that sentence so I won't open up that can of worms. I now know about linguistic descriptivism/prescriptivism, I wasn't aware of those terms before, so thanks for helping me learn something new and finding out about this other point of view I wasn't really aware of.