Most European languages have a case system. The different cases show the grammatical relationships between the parts of a sentence. English has two cases (nominative e.g. I, he; and accusative e.g. me, him). Finnish has fifteen! In German, only noun phrases (nouns and any articles and/or adjectives in front of them) and pronouns have case. There are only four cases in German: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Follow this flowchart to work out the case to use.

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Is the noun/pronoun after a preposition?

(ab, abseits, abzüglich, an, angesichts, anhand, anlässlich, anstatt, anstelle, auf, aufgrund, aufseiten, aus, außer, ausschließlich, außerhalb, bei, betreffs, bezüglich, binnen, bis, dank, diesseits, durch, eingedenk, einschließlich, entgegen, entlang, exklusive, fern, für, gegen, gegenüber, gemäß, halber, hinsichtlich, hinter, in, infolge, inklusive, inmitten, innerhalb, je, jenseits, kontra, kraft, längs, laut, mangels, mit, mithilfe, mitsamt, mittels, nach, nahe, neben, nebst, ob, oberhalb, ohne, per, samt, seit, seitens, seitlich, statt, trotz, über, um, um...willen, unfern, ungeachtet, unter, unterhalb, unweit, vermittels(t), versus, via, vis-à-vis, von, vonseiten, vor, während, wegen, wider, zu, zufolge,zugunsten, zuhanden, zulasten, zuliebe, zuseiten, zuungunsten, zuzüglich, zwecks, zwischen)

Yes / No

Is it an ACCUSATIVE preposition?

(bis, durch, entlang, für, gegen, je, kontra, ohne, per, um, versus, via, wider)

Yes / No

Is it a DATIVE preposition?

(ab, aus, außer, bei, binnen, dank, entgegen, fern, gegenüber, gemäß, laut, mit, mitsamt, nach, nahe, nebst, samt, seit, vis-à-vis, von, zu, zufolge, zuliebe)

Yes / No

Is it a GENITIVE preposition?

(abseits, abzüglich, angesichts, anhand, anlässlich, anstatt, anstelle, aufgrund, aufseiten, ausschließlich, außerhalb, betreffs, bezüglich, dank, diesseits, eingedenk, einschließlich, exklusive, halber, hinsichtlich, infolge, inklusive, inmitten, innerhalb, jenseits, kraft, längs, laut, mangels, mithilfe, mittels, ob, oberhalb, seitens, statt, trotz, seitlich, um...willen, unfern, ungeachtet, unterhalb, unweit, vermittels(t), vonseiten, während, wegen, zugunsten, zuhanden, zulasten, zuseiten, zuungunsten, zuzüglich, zwecks)

Yes / No

Check that it is an ACCUSATIVE/DATIVE preposition

(an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen). Is there movement from one place to another?

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun being used to express a length of time or a distance; or being used in a greeting or in the date of a letter?

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun the subject of the sentence?

(To find the subject, first identify the verb. Then ask "Who verb?" or "What verb?" E.g. In the sentence "The boy has brown hair.", the verb is "has". Ask "Who has?" The answer is "the boy has". Therefore, "the boy" is the subject of the sentence.)

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun the complement of (after) one of the following verbs?

bleiben - to stay, heißen - to be called, scheinen - to seem, sein - to be, werden - to become

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun the direct object of one of the following verbs?

antworten - to answer, danken - to thank, gefallen - to please, gehören - to belong to, glauben - to believe (if the object is a person - e.g. I believe you.), gratulieren - to congratulate, helfen - to help

(To find the direct object, first identify the verb. Then ask "verb whom?" or "verb what?". E.g. In the sentence "The teacher congratulated the student." the verb is "congratulated". Ask "congratulated whom?" The answer is "the student". Therefore, "the student" is the direct object of the sentence.)

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun the direct object of the sentence?

(To find the direct object, first identify the verb. Then ask "verb whom?" or "verb what?". E.g. In the sentence "The boy has brown hair." the verb is "has". Ask "has what?" The answer is "has brown hair". Therefore, "brown hair" is the direct object of the sentence.)

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun the indirect object of the sentence?

(To find the indirect object, first identify the verb. Then ask "verb to whom?" or "verb to what?" E.g. In the sentence "I give the girl a book." the verb is "give". Ask "give to whom?" The answer is "to the girl". Therefore, "the girl" is the indirect object of the sentence.)

Yes / No

Is the noun/pronoun in a position of advantage or disadvantage?

(E.g. Advantage: Ich habe mir ein Buch gekauft.
Disadvantage: Die Teller sind ihm vom Brett gefallen.)

Yes / No

Is the noun in an "of the …" phrase showing possession?

In German, "the mother's name" has to be written "the name of the mother".

Yes / No

Check that you have used the flowchart correctly! However, be aware that the flowchart does not include every situation - just the most common ones.

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Use NOMINATIVE.

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Use ACCUSATIVE.

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Use DATIVE.

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Use GENITIVE.

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