German Cases for English Speakers: The Four-Question Method

Say those four out loud now, three times. Then look away and say them again. When you're unsure about a noun, ask which question it answers.

The match between question and case comes from two course books, and one of them adds wessen. Using it as a drill is this site's House routine, and prepositions and some verbs override it, as this page shows.

Which question goes with which case?

Grimm Grammar lists wer, wen and wem as the nominative, accusative and dative forms of one question word. The Foreign Service Institute's 1961 German Basic Course gives the same three and adds that wessen is the genitive form of wer.

Now say one real question for each case. Read it once, look away, and say it.

English says "who" in the first three. German can't, so English gives you little help here. Grimm also flags two false friends: wer means "who," and wo means "where."

For things, use was (what) in place of wer and wen. FSI lists was as both the nominative and the accusative form. It gives no dative form. After a preposition, it uses a different shape for things, shown further down.

What actually changes in the sentence?

Mostly the article. Grimm's point is that English nouns keep their shape while German changes the word in front. This table merges Grimm's four charts, with "the" and "a" in each cell.

Read the first two rows together. Only the masculine column changes, so in the singular den is your clearest accusative signal. In the plural, den is dative. A few endings land on the noun too:

• Dative plural: add -n unless the plural already ends in -n or -s, as in den Kindern but den Eltern and den Autos. Wiktionary's tables keep the -s plurals as they are.
• Genitive masculine and neuter: add -s. One-syllable nouns usually take -es, as in des Mannes. FSI says speakers use either on many of them, such as des Doms and des Domes.
• A small group of masculine nouns: these add -n or -en outside the nominative, so der Prinz becomes den Prinzen, dem Prinzen and des Prinzen.

All of this assumes you know the noun's gender. Grimm calls that the biggest trick of the whole system, and learning each noun with its article is the fix. Adjective endings come later and build on this table.

Pronouns show the case on their own, with no article to help.

Say these two: Ich kenne ihn gut. (I am well acquainted with him.) and Ich glaube dir immer. (I always believe you.)

How do you run the questions on a real sentence?

Find the verb, then ask each question about it. Try this one out loud: Die Dame gibt dem Gast den Tee. The corpus translation is "The lady serves tea to her guest." Word for word, it's "the lady gives the guest the tea."

Who gives? Die Dame. To whom? Dem Gast. What? Den Tee. Each noun answers one question. Its article matches the table.

This matters because German doesn't lean on word order the way English does. FSI notes that the first element of a German statement can be nominative, accusative or dative. Compare these two:

• Der Hund brachte den Vogel. The dog fetched the bird.
• Den Hund habe ich gesehen. I saw the dog.

Both start with "the dog." Only the first dog does anything. Go by position and you'd get the second one backward. Go by the article.

Owners work the same way. In Er übernahm die Firma seines Vaters. (He took over his father's firm.), ask whose firm: seines Vaters. For plain direct objects, Er kennt den Bürgermeister. (He knows the mayor.) answers wen with den Bürgermeister.

When does the question not decide the case?

Often. Some words pick the case for you, and then the job in the sentence doesn't matter. FSI says it plainly about mit: any pronoun after it is dative, always.

Watch the dative verbs, since "She helps him" reads like a plain object in English. Glauben is split: Wiktionary gives it the dative for the person you believe, as in Ich glaube dir, and the accusative for the thing you believe. Learn each of those verbs with wem attached, and look up its forms in the verb lookup.

The question still works after a preposition, too. It just moves behind it: Mit wem sprichst du? (Who are you talking with?) For a thing, FSI gives a joined form that starts with wo-, such as womit (with what), or wor- before a vowel: Woran denkst du? (What are you thinking about?)

That order is this site's House routine, not a rule from a textbook. Use it when a sentence stalls. Run it once for each noun, not once for the whole sentence. A sentence with two prepositions needs two runs. The second step gets its own section next.

What about in, auf and the other two-way prepositions?

Nine prepositions can take either case: an, auf, in, hinter, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen. Grimm's rule is movement. Going from one place to another takes the accusative. Staying put, or moving around inside one place, takes the dative. FSI puts it this way: the dative tells where something is found, and the accusative tells where something in motion will end up.

Those two questions are this site's shortcut, built on the rule above (House routine). In the second sentence, im is short for in dem.

The shortcut only works for places and movement. FSI's second volume notes that an, in and vor take the dative when they talk about time: Sie sind vor einer Stunde gegangen. (They went an hour ago.) It also says that when a verb comes paired with one of these prepositions, the case is fixed for that pair and has to be learned with it. Warten auf (wait for) takes the accusative: Ich warte auf das Essen. (I'm waiting for the food.)

Tatoeba also has Tom kam im Hotel an. (Tom arrived at the hotel.) with the dative. That one sentence can't tell you the rule for ankommen or any other verb of arriving, so learn it as a whole sentence. When the test and a real sentence disagree, trust the sentence.

Do you need the genitive when you speak?

You need to recognize it. Grimm says the genitive is "dying a slow death" in the German-speaking countries, especially in speech, where the dative is replacing it. It still tells you to learn the forms because you'll meet them in writing. Grimm's wording is its own, and this page has no count of how often speakers use each form. It also doesn't give a spoken form for trotz, wegen and the rest, so say them with the genitive, as in Trotz des Regens kamen sie.

Das Buch gehört dem Mädchen. (The book belongs to the girl.) is the answer shape to practice for that second one. This site's drill puts the genitive last (House routine), so spend your first minutes on wen and wem.

How do you drill this out loud?

The whole drill runs in Spoken Minutes, so the timer only moves while you're talking. The steps and minutes are a House routine, untested with learners.

On day 1 there's nothing to say back yet, so those minutes go to the questions.

1. Pick one sentence from this page and say it.
2. Say a question and its answer: Wem? Dem Gast.
3. Look away and say the whole sentence again.
4. On the longest plan, swap in nouns from your own day. Keep the article's case and check the noun's gender. Stick to singular nouns for things, like coffee or a book, and skip the small group of masculine nouns above that change their ending.

Do one sentence well before you add another. Log the minutes in the Mile Log. Once the sentences come easily, record yourself and check your German sounds, or say along with audio instead. For where cases fit in your first weeks, see how to learn German.

Tomorrow, before you open anything, try a Cold Say-Back: say Die Dame gibt dem Gast den Tee from memory, then name the question each noun answers.