The Dative Case Page

German 1 Online: Reading Guide for Pages 155-159: The Dative Case

For this reading assignment, enter page “155” in the search bar for the eText and begin your reading.

Page 155: Grammatik im Kontext: The Dative Case The use, meaning and forms of the dative case are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to learn thoroughly. We don’t have a real ‘dative’ case in English, so there is no direct correlation. The dative case in German is used to indicate the RECIPIENT or BENEFICIARY of an action: examples in English are phrases like “I’m giving my mom a cake” where “my mom” is the indirect object or recipient, and uses the dative case in German. Other examples of dative verbs and dative prepositions will be covered in the next reading guides. For this particular section, the grammar mostly focuses on indirect objects: beneficiaries and recipients of the action in a sentence.

Page 155-156: Personal Pronouns in the Dative Case Think about the English sentences “How are things going for you?” or “This is fun for me” — in each of those examples, the “for you” or “for me” phrase will be shown with a Dative Case Pronoun in German. In chapter 2, you learned the accusative pronouns (mich, dich, ihn, etc). But German has a third set of pronouns that you must now also learn:

NOM ...... AKK ...... DAT NOM ...... AKK ...... DAT ich ...... mich ...... mir wir ...... uns ...... uns du ...... dich ...... dir ihr ...... euch ...... euch er ...... ihn ...... ihm sie ...... sie ...... ihnen sie ...... sie ...... ihr Sie ...... Sie ...... Ihnen es ...... es ...... ihm Things to notice: • The singular pronouns (me, you, him, her, it) as well as the plural 3rd person (they) and You formal DO change in the dative case. You must learn these new forms: mir, dir, ihm, ihr, ihm, ihnen, Ihnen. • The pronoun for neuter objects (it) for the dative case — ihm — is the same as the word for ‘him’ masculine. Context will establish whether a masculine or neuter object is being discussed. • The plural pronouns us and you all — uns and euch — have the same forms in the accusative and dative cases. This is more like English, where “do you see us?” (accusative) and “are you giving us a present?” (dative) are the same form. English collapsed the dative and the accusative pronouns into one form, but German keeps two separate forms for the majority of the pronouns (mich - mir, dich - dir, ihn - ihm).

Page 156-157: Übung 2 und 3 You will complete exercises 2 and 3 as part of your Connect Aufgabe, so after you have read through the grammar explanation of the dative case pronouns, you should complete those assignments online. Exercises 1 and 4 are not assigned.

Page 157: Articles and Possessive Adjectives in the Dative Case The dative case articles (the words for ‘the’ or ‘a’ or ‘this’) as well as the possessives (‘my’ or ‘his’) all have different forms in the dative case. Remember that in the accusative case, ONLY the masculine article changed (der changed into den for the accusative direct objects). In the dative case, all gender and plural articles change their forms.

The chart on page 157 is a good overview, but to make it even simpler, you really only need to memorize the LAST LETTER of each gender article: • masculine dative articles will always end in M: dem, meinem, diesem, ihm • feminine dative articles will always end in R: der, meiner, dieser, ihr • neuter dative articles will always end in M: dem, meinem, diesem, ihm • plural dative articles will always end in N, plus add -N to the noun itself: den +n, meinen +n, diesen +n, ihnen Dealing with only the last letter leaves you with a simpler chart to memorize. Rather than remembering every single possible form (dem, meinem, keinem, diesem, ihm versus der, meiner, keiner, dieser, ihr) it is much simpler to keep this chart in your head and notes: MASC FEM NEUT PLUR NOM r e s e AKK n e s e DAT m r m n+n Things to notice: • A mnemonic memory aid is to say “reesy neesy mister man” or “reesy neesy meister mann” for the chart: that will help you remember the order of the letters. • The masculine articles and pronouns end in R in the nominative case (der, dieser, er), change to N in the accusative (den, diesen, ihn) and change to M in the dative (dem, diesem, ihm). • The feminine articles and pronouns end in E in the nominative case (die, diese, sie), do not change in the accusative (die, diese, sie) but do change to R in the dative (der, dieser, ihr). • The neuter articles and pronouns end in S in the nominative case (das, dieses, es), do not change in the accusative case (das, dieses, es) but do change to M in the dative (dem, diesem, ihm). • The plural articles and pronouns end in E in the nominative case (die, diese, sie), do not change in the accusative case (die, diese, sie) but do change to N+N in the dative (den +n, diesen +n, ihnen). • Adding the +N to the plural dative noun is a necessary part of the dative case, but when? Some nouns already end in -N in the plural: if so, you don’t try to add any extra +N. Also, if the noun ends in -S in the plural, it’s impossible to add an +N: die Leute ...... den Leuten add +n for dative plural die Kinder ...... den Kindern add +n for dative plural die Studenten .....den Studenten -n already present: do not add any more +n die Autos ...... den Autos -s already present: do not add +n

Page 158: The Dative Case for Indirect Objects The indirect object of a sentence is the RECIPIENT or BENEFICIARY of the action. In a sentence like “I’m giving my friend a card” then FRIEND is the indirect object, and will be placed into the dative case in German. Not all sentences have indirect objects, but verbs like giving (to someone), showing (to someone), buying (for someone), sending (to someone) and other similar meanings will usually involve putting the RECIPIENT of the action — the indirect object — into the dative case. Things to notice: • The recipient or beneficiary of an action will be in the dative case. • The subject (person doing the action) as we learned in prior chapters will still be in the nominative case. • The object (direct object) as we learned in prior chapters will still be in the accusative case. • This means you will have an object in the accusative case, and a person (beneficiary) in the dative case: Ich gebe meinem Bruder einen Computer = I’m giving my brother (dative) a computer (accusative). • Your book lists several of the common verbs that will take indirect objects. Be aware that it is not a complete list: any action verb that has both a direct object (thing) and a indirect object (beneficiary) will use a dative indirect object. A few more examples: I’m giving my cat her toys. cat is the beneficiary (dative), toys is the direct object (accusative) Ich gebe meiner Katze ihre Spielzeuge. I’m telling my friends a joke. friends is the beneficiary (dative), joke is the dir. obj. (accusative) Ich erzähle meinen Freunden einen Witz. I’m loaning my brother my laptop. brother is the beneficiary (dative), laptop is the dir. obj. (accusative) Ich leihe meinem Bruder meinen Laptop. My homework is giving me a headache. me is the beneficiary (dative), headache is the dir. obj. (acc) Meine Hausaufgaben bereiten mir Kopfschmerzen. I strongly suggest that you look at the following links. One is my explanation and practice with the dative case, and the other is a detailed chart for the dative case articles and pronouns.

Handout: Dative Case Explanation (http://www.nthuleen.com/saddleback/handouts/Dative-Dative_Case_Explanation.pdf)

Handout: Chart of Dative Articles (http://www.nthuleen.com/saddleback/handouts/Dative-Dative_Chart.pdf)

Page 158-159: Übung 5, 6, and 7 You will complete exercises 5, 6 and 7 as part of your Connect Aufgabe, so after you have read through the grammar explanation of the dative case for indirect objects, you should complete those assignments online.

Now that you have learned the important information about the dative case for indirect objects, you should complete the Aufgabe on the Connect website. After you have completed those exercises, move on to the next reading guide (pages 160-161), where we continue the dative case usage with dative verbs.