The Ultimate Guide to the Accusative Case in German

The best way to learn German quickly is mastering each of the cases. The German language uses the accusative case nearly as often as it uses the nominative case. You will almost certainly use the accusative case if you are writing or speaking a more complex sentence. It’s not quite as easy to learn as the nominative case, but it isn’t too much harder either.

Let’s take a look at when you need the accusative case. From there, we’ll go over the different ways German changes the adjectives and descriptions for nouns that should be in the accusative case.

Understanding the Accusative Case

To learn to speak German, you need to understand the basics - just like in English. That means understing the different parts of speech and how the operate in a sentence.

Nouns that act as the direct object to the subject (nominative case) are in the accusative case. It’s easier to see when you have an example:

The dog chased the cat.

While feeling bad for the cat, you should also note that the cat is the direct object in the sentence. The dog is the subject that is doing the action. The cat probably is running – the fact that the verb is chase indicates that the cat isn’t standing still and just being pestered by the dog. Still, the dog is doing the chasing. What the dog is chasing is the cat.

Here’s another example.

My car has a flat tire.

The tire is the direct object. Neither the car nor the tire is actually doing anything, but the car is the subject of the sentence. The flat tire describes something about the car, and in this case, that something is that you can’t drive the car because one of the tires is flat.

As a bonus, if you are still a student and have to learn about cases for English class, the definition is the same between English and German. Learning German will help you better diagram sentences and need to identify the accusative case. Since you’ll make a lot of changes for German, it will be so much easier to understand how it’s treated in English.

Accusative Case for Prepositions

Besides acting as the direct object, you will actually use the accusative case with prepositions. In other words, you will need to apply the same accusative rules when you use an accusative preposition. No matter what else is going on in the sentence, these words always mean that you use the accusative case for any accompanying article or adjectives.

There are eight prepositions that indicate the rest of the prepositional phrase should be in accusative case.

Since English doesn’t make the distinctions clear, let’s take a look at how German indicates that a phrase or word is in the accusative case.

Indicating the Accusative Case

Having learned the nominative case, you’ll find that the accusative case is fairly easy to learn. The only difference for the article is the masculine case – instead of der, you will use den.

This will make practicing the nominative and accusative cases pretty easy, which is a relief. Most small talk and basic conversations employ simpler sentences, so as long as you remember to use den for masculine nouns, you can quickly build your confidence.

That is something you’ll want to practice a lot because you will want to build confidence before moving on to the next cases – the dative and genitive cases.

You’ll also need to update the adjective to reflect that the noun is accusative. Again, they are pretty much the same, except for the masculine accusative adjectives.

An easy way to remember it is that you change -er to -en, and the adjective gets the same -n or -en.

Remember, take time to practice sentences with nominative and accusative cases to get comfortable. Make sure to add adjectives so that you get the feel for how the different gendered articles change the way you think about the sentence. The more you try different gendered nouns, the more confident you’ll feel when you move into the much harder cases.

Let’s look at some of the examples that we had in the nominative blog.

Der Hunde jagte die Katze aus dem Haus. The dog chased the cat out of the house.

The poor cat is the direct object and is the focus of the dog’s attention. You can make a substitute in the sentence, using the pronoun instead of the article and noun.

Der Hunde jagte sie aus dem Haus. The dog chased her out of the house.

Maybe you have several cats in your house and you are in a hurry to go bring one of them back inside. Instead of using a pronoun, you’ll shout as you rush out of the house.

Der Hunde jagte eine Katze aus dem Haus. The dog chased a cat out of the house.

Now the rest of your household is alerted and can come help you find the escaped cat – or perhaps manage the over-eager dog.

Let’s look at another example, this time with adjectives.

Die müde Mutter las ihrem Sohn eine kurze Gutenachtgeschichte vor. The tired mom read her son a short bedtime story.

This one is a bit trickier because there is a direct object and an indirect object. You can determine which one is the direct object by considering what action is being done. She’s reading a story. That means that the short bedtime story is the direct object – not her son.

Once you know which noun is the direct object, you can adjust the article and adjectives to be in the accusative case. Since the base word is story, a feminine noun, you don’t have to change a thing from the nominative case.

Here’s another example sentence.

Das neue Auto ist für meinen ältesten Neffen. The new car is for my oldest nephew.

In this case, the accusative case is needed because of the preposition, für. It is not the direct object of the sentence (there is no direct object in this sentence). Für is one of the eight accusative prepositions, so you don’t have to think too long about it to know how to adjust the article and adjective – you know to just use the accusative case.

In this example, the noun is in the masculine case, so you need to add -n to the article and use -en at the end of adjective.

Let’s look at one more example.

Die Reise durch den dunklen Tunnel ist unheimlich. Traveling through the dark tunnel is scary.

Although at the beginning of the sentence, durch is an accusative preposition. That means that you should automatically adjust the article and adjective to indicate the accusative case. Since tunnel is a masculine noun, you will need to adjust both the article and the adjective to reflect that.

Quick Tips - Keeping up the Practice

Now you know how to work with both the nominative and accusative cases. That means you have what you need to make much more complicated sentences with more details. Writing and speaking using these cases as often as you can will help you build confidence. This is going to be absolutely essential before you progress to the next two cases.

Continue writing or speaking at least 10 sentences a day using both cases. Mix it up with direct objects and accusative prepositions.

Combine your new vocabulary with both nominative and accusative cases. This gives you a way to practice your new words while reinforcing your use of both cases. This will give you more interesting options and can keep you engaged in building your skills. It’s always a great way to practice new vocabulary with interesting scenarios.