Accusative: for direct objects and after some prepositions (including für and ohne).The other German cases also have general rules about when they're used: Here are some examples-the article shows the noun's gender and that it's in the nominative case: German This is the case used for the subject of a sentence. When you first start learning German on Duolingo, you'll see a lot of nouns of all three genders (masculine, neuter, feminine) in the nominative case. (We'll save adjectives for another post.) That'll include articles (words like "the" and "a"), possessive pronouns (words like "my," "your," and "his"), and adjectives (words like "big" and "difficult") that go with the noun. We use noun cases a little bit in English, in our pronouns: We say "he" for the subject of a sentence (" He goes to the store"), "him" for the object of a sentence ("Did you see him at the store?"), and "his" to show possession (" His car is in the parking lot").īut in German, case matters for all nouns, although the nouns themselves aren't what change forms-instead, words that go with a noun will change depending on gender and case. The key to German declensions is remembering the grammatical gender + case of the noun. Declension of "our," "your" (plural), and "their".Declension of "your" (formal + singular).Declension of "my" and "your" (informal + singular).Use these links to jump directly to each section: If you're further along in your German learning, read the rest of this post for more information about German noun cases and possessive pronouns-those words Cue-less mentioned, like ihr (her) and dein (your). Save this page for later-in the meantime, you're dismissed. If you're an early learner just starting out in German, that might be all you need for now! In Duolingo's German course, we introduce learners to these cases slowly and strategically-first you get lots of practice with grammatical gender and the nominative case, then we introduce the accusative case for masculine and feminine nouns, then for neuter, then the next case, etc. Genitive: Typically the genitive ending is -es for masculine and neuter nouns and -er for feminine and plural nouns.Dative: Typically the dative ending is -em for masculine and neuter nouns and -er for feminine.Accusative: Only masculine nouns will change in the accusative.Nominative: Memorize these forms-they'll serve you well for remembering the noun's gender and to learn the other declension patterns!.I'll get to what all these cases mean in the next section, but first, rest assured that there are some basic tips for learning German declensions! Commit this list to memory: So, in dein Hund (your dog), dein tells us that Hund is masculine and nominative-and dein will change if Hund is accusative (or dative, or genitive). You'll also hear "noun cases" called "declensions." German has four noun cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The second thing to know is that German nouns have different noun cases, and words related to the noun will change forms depending on the noun's job in the sentence (its case). You can review all the German grammatical gender patterns in my first Dear Duolingo post! The first thing to know is that German nouns all have grammatical gender, and words related to the noun will have to match the gender of the noun-so we'll say dein Hund for "your dog" (because Hund is masculine), but deine Katze for "your cat" (because Katze is feminine). So you're not alone in wondering what the rules are, Cue-less! Thankfully, there are rules about which version to use and even some helpful patterns to look for. Other learners have written to us with the very same question-German has a lot of these words with many forms, depending on what the word is doing in a sentence. ![]() (And actually, there are a lot of words like them!) Is there a specific time when I should use one over the other, or are they interchangeable? I’m learning German, but I still haven’t figured out the cues for whether I should use ihr/ihre/ihren (her) or dein/deine/deinen (your) in a sentence. Let's take a look! Our question this week: Kristina Schoen, and I'm back this week with another Dear Duolingo post all about German! We've heard lots of fantastic questions from our German learners over the last few months-since I first wrote about grammatical gender in German-which means you'll be hearing a lot more from me! First up is one of the most common questions I used to hear from my German students. ![]() Welcome to another week of Dear Duolingo, an advice column just for language learners.
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