Do you know what the German dative is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on the German dative, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
-
Kevin
-
December 6, 2021
-
Common Questions
Your writing, at its best
Compose bold, clear, mistake-free, writing with Grammarly's AI-powered writing assistant
What is the German dative?
According to German with Laura, the dative case has a standard, basic function: signaling the indirect object of the sentence. As with other cases like the nominative, the accusative case, and genitive, the dative case uses an indirect object to represent to or for whom action is taken. German uses the dative case frequently. In English, we can use the dative case or a prepositional phrase but in German, indirect objects are always put into the dative case.
The two types of rods that come in front of nouns are determiners and adjectives. Determiners include a, the, some, many, all, every, and so on that tell us how many or which one, while adjectives tell us the feature of a noun. In German, when a noun is in the dative slot in a sentence, the determiner and/or adjective will take declensions, such as these instances of -m, -n, -s. Declensions change based on the gender of the noun, which case it’s in, what type of words are in front of the noun, and how many of each type are in front of the noun. Strong declensions indicate the gender/case of the noun, while weak declensions do not. First, the 9 common prepositions that are always dative. There are the dative prepositions aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, gegenüber. An, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen, entlang are also used with the dative case.
Many different languages also contain words that mean dative. You may notice that some of these translations of dative look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and forms in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of dative is provided by Word Sense.
- Irish: tabharthach
- Portuguese: dativo
- Catalan: datiu
- French: datif (masc.)
- Greek: δοτική (fem.)
- Slovene: dajalniški
- Turkish: -e hâli, datif
- Swedish: dativ
- German: Dativ, dativisch
- Italian: dativo
- Latin: dativus (masc.)
- Faroese: hvørjumfals-
- Norwegian: dativ (masc.)
- Georgian: მიცემითი
- Czech: dativní
- Basque: datibo
- Dutch: in de datief (masc.)
- Polish: celownikowy
- Russian: да́тельный
- Scottish Gaelic: tabhartach
- Spanish: dativo
- Icelandic: þágufall
- Japanese: 与格 (yokaku)
- Finnish: datiivinen, datiivi
- Armenian: տրական
- Arabic: مفعول لأجله (masc.)
- Hungarian: részeshatározó
- Danish: dativ
What are examples of German datives?
German datives can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or grammatical technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of German datives from Your Dictionary that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Take a look at these German dative examples in the following sentences from German Project and see how many you can identify the German dative in!
- Du hast dir ins Bein geschnitten!
- Sie setzt sich den Hut auf.
- Ich gebe dem traurigen Hund einen Knochen.
- Ich helfe ihm.
- Das war mir schon bewusst.
- Ich folge dir.
- Ich gebe traurigen Hunden Knochen.
- Ich wasche mir die Hände.
- Du fehlst mir.
- Er gefällt mir.
- Ich ziehe mir die Jacke aus.
- Ich singe meinem schläfrigen Baby ein sanftes Schlaflied vor.
- Das war mir unerwünscht.
- Das ist mir verständlich.
- Ich schickte dem Mann(e) das Buch.
- Meine Freunde helfen mir.
- Ich gab der Frau den Stift zurück.
- Der Mann gibt den Kindern das Buch
- Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch.
- Ich gebe dem Kind das Buch.
- Ich gebe der Frau das buch.
- Ich gebe den Kindern das Buch.
- Ich gebe den Chefs das Buch.
- Ich komme aus der Schweiz.
- Alle sprechen Deutsch außer dem Mann.
- Er wohnt bei der Frau.
- Ich spreche mit der Frau.
- Nach dem Konzert, gehen wir.
- Ich gehe nach dem Konzert.
- Wir kennen uns schon seit der Konferenz.
- Ich kann Opa von der Arbeit abholen.
- Ich gehe zum Arzt.
What are other grammar terms?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- infinitive
- case
- unmarked genitive
- subject
- vocative
- noun phrase
- complementary
- participle | past participle | present participle
- absolute (absol.)
- anticipatory
- adverbial | adverbially
- possessive pronoun
- reflexive
- conditional
- mass noun
- interjection
- relative
- double object
- positive
- modify | modifier
- dative
- predicative
- participial adjective
- passive infinitive
- perfect
- morpheme
- to-infinitive
- indirect passive
- impersonal (impers.)
- present participle
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- passive
- prefix
- prepositional passive
- construction
- optative
- noun (n.)
- singular
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- nominative
- second person
- tense
- intensifier
- stem
- subjunctive
- verbal noun
- postmodify | postmodifier
- gender
- article
- past tense
- adjective
- direct object
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- finite
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- abstract
- objective
- suffix
- suffix
- gerund
- transitive
- verb (v.)
- copular verb | copula
- indefinite
- interrogative
- non-referential
- ellipsis | elliptical
- conjunction (conj.)
- plural
- prepositional object
- apposition
- antecedent
- cataphoric
- compound | compounding
- phrase (phr.)
- number
- intransitive
- indicative
- parasynthetic
- indirect speech
- instrumental
- accusative
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- premodify | premodifier
- part of speech
- active
- person
- mood
- complement
- subordinate clause
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- combination
- construed (const., constr.)
- pronoun (pron.)
- definite article
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- subjective
- locative
- progressive
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- common noun
- non-finite
- collective noun
- adverb (adv.)
- protasis
- demonstrative
- proper noun | proper name
- pro-form
- zero
- that-clause
- concrete
- feminine
- first person
- genitive
- simple
- comparative
- indirect object
- personal pronoun
- similative
- declarative
- past participle
- base form
- possessive
- preposition (prep.)
- possessive adjective
- special use
- count noun
- agree | agreement
- neuter
- direct question
- object | direct object | indirect object
- agent noun
- dual
- quasi-
- present tense
- appositive
- prepositional phrase
- apodosis and protasis
- combining form (comb. form)
- attributive
- imperative (imper.)
- causative
- element
- direct speech
- third-person
- filler
- anaphoric
- main verb
- superlative
- collocation | collocate
- determiner
- clause
- indirect question
- cognate object
- phrasal verb
- head
- bare infinitive
- main clause
- masculine
Overall, the German dative is responsible for signaling the indirect object of the sentence.
Sources:
