German cases practice
Practice nominative, accusative, dative and genitive in German sentences. Understand subjects, objects, recipients and case-selecting verbs with clear feedback.
Choose accusative vs dative or one of the four cases.
Identify the role of the noun and choose its article.
Read the explanation and retry your mistakes.
Choose the case by its job in the sentence
First find the verb and the role of the noun. Some verbs select a case directly: helfen and danken require dative. The first noun is not always the subject.
Ich gebe ___ Kind ein Buch.
Case reference: articles and roles
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | der | die | das | die |
| accusative | den | die | das | die |
| dative | dem | der | dem | den |
| genitive | des | der | des | der |
Nominative: subject or identifying phrase after sein. Accusative: many direct objects. Dative: many recipients, selected verbs and prepositions. Genitive: possession and selected prepositions or verbs.
Make sense of what you’re practicing
Accusative or dative: start with the verb
In Ich gebe dem Kind einen Ball, dem Kind is the recipient and einen Ball is the thing given. But English object categories do not always predict German case: helfen, danken, antworten and gehören require dative. Learn these verbs with a short phrase, such as jemandem helfen.
Nominative is a role, not a position
The subject takes nominative, even when it is not the first phrase. Den Mann sieht der Hund means the dog sees the man. Der Hund is nominative; den Mann is accusative. Flexible word order makes the case marking especially useful.
Genitive and noun endings
Genitive often connects an owner to a possession: das Auto des Vaters, die Tasche der Frau. Masculine and neuter nouns commonly take -(e)s, while feminine nouns usually keep their form. Weak masculine nouns use -(e)n instead, as in des Studenten.
Do not reduce cases to movement versus stillness
The location/destination contrast applies to spatial uses of two-way prepositions. It is not a general rule for every accusative or dative sentence. Mit always takes dative, including when someone is moving. A verb such as sehen still takes an accusative object when nobody moves.