Friend of Foe: Dative Case

Learning a second or third language is fun. For the past 20 years, I have happily introduced both adults and children to the delights of learning my native language - German.

While learning a foreign language is never easy, the joy of learning not only the language but also the culture, makes it all worthwhile. German seems to be one of the harder languages to learn and can bechallenging to students as they become more proficient.  

In the early stages of learning German, students are usually motivated and happy to put in the work, including homework, because they quickly find they are more comfortable with many of the everyday phrases. 

However, German does offer some grammatical challenges to students with its many cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative. 

Dative is the name for the indirect object, while Accusative is the direct object. 

The easiest way to understand the difference between the Dative and the Accusative is to keep in mind a couple of sample sentences. 

Example 

I gave him the picture. I gave the picture (direct object) to him (indirect object).

Ich habe IHM (HIM) das Bild gegeben.

You help her with the work.

Du hilfst iHR (HeR) bei (Dative preposition) der Arbeit (feminine die).

 If you are a student of mine, you are smiling as you read this and remembering the song which I taught you to identify the prepositions and also article endings which take dative case. 

• Song Donauwalzer   
• aus
• außer
• bei
• mit
• nach
• seit
• von
• zu
• gegenüber (does not fit into the song)

Yes, it is possible to simplify some of these grammar rules! That‘s my job as a teacher of German as a second language.

I can help you master some of the complexities of my native language with lots of imaginative and fun tricks, such as “Mr. Man”.

article endings

der die das die

dem der dem den

M R. M N (read MisteR MaN)

Er hilft dem Mann

Sie läuft zu der Mutter.

Ich spiele mit deN lautEN KinderN. (Dative Plural NN & adjective ending Dativ always EN)

 With all these tricks to help you, Dative will become your new friend!

I hope that I have intrigued you by describing some of the methods I use to make learning my native language easier and pass any test.

If you would like to learn more about my teaching techniques, please contact me. I would also love to hear from some of my students who have conquered German using some of these tricks. 

So current and former students, please share your thoughts. What do you struggle with? What would help you to learn? 

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