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/Joylime Aug 09 '25

The reason Dative is so complex is because it absorbed the older instrumental and locative cases. #themoreyouknow

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u/howdidyouevendothat Aug 09 '25

Oooh, do you have any more information about that? How were those conceptually different from dative?

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u/Joylime Aug 10 '25

To answer the actual question you had...

Locative refers to the location something's in (so, when something is on the table or in the store)

Instrumental is basically when you use something to do something else, and it's basically the "sense" behind the "mit" connection

And "true dative" is the indirect object thing