A2.1 · 4 of 28

Dativ: bestimmte Artikel

Lesson · 4 rules · about 5 min

Give, help, thank, congratulate: learn dem, der and den, and German finally tells you who receives what.

  1. 1dem / der / dem / den(+n)
  2. 2Ask wem?
  3. 3Verbs that always take the dative
  4. 4einem / einer, meinem / meiner
Why this matters

The dative is the third case, and the one everyday German leans on most after the accusative. It marks the receiver — the person something is given, shown, told or done to: Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch — and it follows a group of verbs (helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören, antworten) and a group of prepositions (mit, bei, nach, zu, aus, von, seit). The question is wem? (to whom?). Its articles are the ones you have met as chunks since the start of the course (im, am, beim): der → dem, das → dem, die → der, and the plural → den with an -n added to the noun itself (mit den Kindern). The indefinite article follows: einem, einem, einer; and kein, mein and the other ein-words do the same: meinem Vater, meiner Mutter, meinen Eltern.

Question 1 of 10 · eins
eins1zwei2drei3vier4fünf5sechs6sieben7acht8neun9zehn10

Dativ

der Mann → Dativ

Ich gebe Mann das Buch. (der)

I give the book to the man.