2. CASES (Kasus) Sorry, you cant avoid them in German. So, lets try to understand them one last time.

3. What is a case? A case is how a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun is used in a sentence. Which of the following are not nouns or pronouns? fingernail, paper, you, us, swam, yesterday, snow, how, swimsuit, him Hopefully you chose swam, yesterday, & how.

4. There are 4 cases in German: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive Nominative: the subject of the sentence ( it DOES the verb) Accusative: the direct object or object of an Acc. preposition Dative: the indirect object (to/ for) or an object of a Dat. preposition

5. …and the last case? Genitive Genitive case is used to show possession.of Examples: my sisters boyfriend: Der Freund meiner Schwester. the parrots food: Das Futter des Papageis Notice the color coding correspondence.

6. Genitive is sometimes used with these prepositions: trotz: despite; in spite of statt/ anstatt: instead of während: during

7. What happens to the articles in each case? derdiedasdie dendiedasdie demderdemden desderdesder Nom Acc Dat Gen Masc.Fem. Neuter Plural These are endings found on the and other determiners (like each, which, this/that/these/those.)

8. …and what happens with other articles? ------ -e ----- -e -en -e ----- -e -em -er -em -en -es -er -es -er These endings go on ein- (a, an one), kein- (not any), and possessive articles (like my, your, his…) Masc.Fem.Neut. Plur. Nom Acc Dat Gen

9. If you compare the last two charts, which boxes have different endings? Yes, only those three. Otherwise, the two charts are the same.

10. How good is your memory? 1.What is a case in German? 2.What is affected by a case? 3.What are the four cases? 4.What is the purpose of each? 5.How does knowing the case affect how you write and say the words?

11. How do you figure out the case of a noun or pronoun? Here is one method. Run the noun phrase or pronoun through the following tests.

12. Find the verb. Who or what DOES the verb is the subject. If your noun DOES the verb, then youve found the case- NOMINATIVE Are there any prepositions right before the noun phrase? If so, you must use the case that preposition requires. Do the words to or for before the noun phrase make sense in English? If so, then you have an INDIRECT OBJECT- DATIVE case Does the word of make sense before the noun phrase? If so, then you are showing possession- GENITIVE case If none of the other tests work, it must be a DIRECT OBJECT- ACCUSATIVE case.