Akkusativ nominative and genativ....?

Question

HELP!...im having trouble figuring out how and when to use them! i need a easy simple explnation....anyone!!!

thank you!!!!

Answer 1

Nominativ ("first case") is used for the subject of the sentence, Akkusativ ("fourth case") is for the object. Dativ ("third case") is mostly used to indicate whom you give something to (lat. "dare" means "to give"). Genitiv ("second case") usually is the "possesive" case, i.e., whom something belongs to, or of what something is derived / descends from.

I'm trying to make up a sentence that contains all four (may sound silly, but still):

Hans verkaufte das Auto seines Freundes seinem Nachbarn.

(Hans sold his friend's car to his neighbor.)

You can decide it by questioning:

who (did it)? - Hans, Nominativ

what? - das Auto, Akkusativ

whose? - seines Freundes, Genitiv

to whom? - seinem Nachbarn, Dativ

The problems start when prepositions come into play; most of  them must be followed by a specific case. In this example, instead of "seinem Nachbarn", you also might have said "an seinen Nachbarn", replacing the Dativ with the "an" ("to") construction, which requires the Akkusativ.

But in general, you can question through the English phrase with the above questions and find out which is which.

Let's try it:

I gave my computer's hard disk to the repairman, because it was broken.

Start with the main clause:

who? - I, Ich (Nominativ)

did what? - gave, gab

what? - the hard disk, die Festplatte (Akkusativ)

whose (hard disk)? - my computer's - meines Computers (Genitiv)

to whom? - to the repairman, dem Techniker (Dativ)

so here you have it:

Ich gab die Festplatte meines Computers dem Techniker. (mind that Genitiv und Akkusativ switch places in German)

Hope this helped a bit.

Answer 2

ALWIN-thank you very much for your answer.

I´m a new German language student, and your explanation helped a lot!