Hi guys!!
Today in this session, I will be
talking to you about the "cases" in
german language
And these cases are "nominativ case",
"akkusativ case" "dative case" and the
"genetive case"
For those of you who don't know what cases are,
I hope you will understand that by the end of the session
You can't actually define what cases are,
but you have to understand what this is
inorder to understand the essence of German
Initially, I will be talking about the nominativ
akkusativ and the dativ case
The fourth one - the genetiv case, maybe I'll do
it in another session
but first let's do the initial three!
In order to understand the *DATIV case, let us
take a simple example
Take the verb "give"
Now, I am making a sentence with this verb:
"I am giving it to you"
So when you are using this verb "give",
you are always doing this action "to"
someone or something
I'm giving it "to" someone
I'm giving it "to" something
There is an action involoved
from one person to another
and hence the verb "give"
always takes dativ
Now let us take another verb: to see
I am seeing you, or I see you
Here, we are not seeing "to" anybody
There is no action from one
person to another
It's just "I see you" and not
"I see to you"
So, the verb "see" always takes akkusativ
This is known as the "CASE"
in German language
Take the english word "you"
You can translate this word "you"
in several ways to German
It can be "du", "dich" or "dir"
Now, how can you know which form
to use in a particular sentence
Is it "du", is it "dich" oder
is it "dir"
In order to know that, you need to know which
case this noun "you" takes in the sentence
If it is in dativ case, it takes "dir"
And if it is in akkusativ case,
it takes "dich"
If it is in nominativ,
it takes "du"
Now, earlier I said a sentence
"I am giving it to you"
I told that since the action is
passing from one person to another
this verb "give" always takes dativ
So, if you translate this sentence to german,
it will be
"Ich gebe es dir"
because the dativ case for you
in German is "dir"
Similarly if you translate
"I see you", see always take akkusativ
and hence the translation will be
"Ich sehe dich"
So the word "you" in German is
"dich" and not "dir"
Now let us evaluate what will happen
when we interchange dich and dir
"Ich sehe dir", which is completly wrong
means "I see to you", which doesn't make sense
At the same time, if you say
"Ich gebe es dich"
it means "I am giving it you" and
not "I am giving it *to* you"
That is the basic difference between
dich and dir
Now, let us come to the intitial one:
the Nominativ case
What is nominativ case?
I just mentioned two sentences here
Ich sehe dich
Ich gebe es dir
which means I am seeing you
and I am giving it to you
In both these sentences, "I" is the doer
of the action
Hence, "I" take nominativ
Lets take the sentence
"Ich sehe dich"
"Ich" is the nominativ and
"dich" is the akkusativ case here
At the same time, take the second
sentence: "Ich gebe es dir"
"Ich" is the nominativ case and
"dir" is the dativ case
Now, I will give you some examples of
akkusativ and dativ verbs
so that you will get a better idea
on how to use it
First of all: the akkusativ verbs
As I mentions before, "sehen" which means
to see takes akkusativ always
Ich sehe dich
another verb is schlagen, which means
to beat or to hit
Ich schlage dich which means
"I beat you"
If you use "Ich schlage dir" there,
it means "I am beating to you"
Another one is überreden which means
to convince or to persuade
ich überrede dich.. it takes akkusativ
At the same time, some dativ examples
Ich gebe es dir
gebe "dir" - I am giving it "to" tou
similarly the verb "antworten" which means
"to reply" always takes dativ
I am replying "to" you:
Ich antworte dir
Similarly "schicken".
If you are sending a gift, you say
"I am sending the gift to you"
Ich schicke es dir
That is the way, the german language works
Now, there are definitly some exceptions to these
For example, consider the verb
"helfen" which means "to help"
In english, we say "I help you"
So if you translate it to German,
it will be: Ich helfe dich
But that is wrong
The correct one is "ich helfe dir"
which if you literally translate to
english will mean
"I am helping to you"
But, that is just the way
the German langauge works
and that's the way the Germans think
Now, I have seen many people who simply
by-heart which case a particular verb takes
for example, they just by-heart
"geben takes dativ"
"sehen takes akkusativ".
But that is a completly wrong approach
Rather you must understand the logic
behing working of the cases
And then it will automatically come from
you if you understand the nature of the language
and truly understand how to think
in the correct way
So instead of by-hearing,
try to understand the logic
when you see a particular verb
and the corresponding case
Now let us talk about the nominativ case
which is the easiest case in German
Almost every sentence in German
has a nominativ case
The nominativ is nothing but the
subject, or the doer of the action
For example, in all the sentences
I mentioned before
"I" was the doer of the action
"I" am giving it to you
"I" am seeing you
"I" am convincing you
and so on...
This "I" in the sentence is in
Nominativ case
That's it and that's as far
as Nominativ goes
In the examples I mentioned before
It was the noun "YOU"
or rather "DU" in German
which always took akkusativ
or dativ cases
Now, let us consider other possibilities
You need not always say
"I am giving it to you"
you can say "I am giving it to him"
or "I see him"
How do you say that?
well, it's very easy
He in German is "ER"
Now, the akkusativ form of "er"
is "ihn"
and the dativ case is "ihm"
So if you want to say "I see him",
you say "ich sehe ihn": that's it!
And if you want to say "I am  giving it to him",
you say "ich gebe es ihm"
It's the similar case with "her"
Now, the German word for
"she" is "SIE"
And the akkusativ form
of "sie" is "sie" itself
Now, that is something that
you have to understand
And the dativ case of "sie" is "ihr"
So if you want to say "I see her"
you say "Ich sehe sie"
And if you want to say "I am  giving it to her",
you say "ich gebe es ihr"
What about "YOU" in formal terms?
Most of you would know there are
two terms for "YOU" in German
One of them is informal
and the other one is formal
The ones "du", "dich" and "dir"
were all informal
And there is another one "Sie"
which is the formal one
The akkusativ of "Sie" is "Sie" itself
and the dativ is "Ihnen"
So when you want to say "I see you"
you say "Ich sehe Sie" (with a capital S)
"I am  giving it to you",
you say "ich gebe es Ihnen"
How do you say about "me" (or "I")
In all these sentences,
I has been the subject
"Ich" was the subject
What if "YOU" become the subject
and "I" become the object?
For example, "you see me"
"Sie sehen MICH"
You see, "mich" is the akkusativ
of "ich"
Similarly, "Sie *geben es mir"
"mir" is the dativ case for "ich"
I hope that this video was
informative for you
I really hope you enjoyed it and
I hope that it will make
your German learning a bit easier
If you have any specific doubts,
please leave it in the comments section
If you want me to make videos about
some topics you find dificult
Please leave that also in the comments
If I have time, I will definitly look
into it
Bye guys!!
