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This is the dative case in German. German has 4 cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The dative case is used to indicate the indirect object of a verb, or after certain prepositions. Here are the dative articles for German nouns. Note that many common German verbs require the accusative case instead of the dative case, but a few have the dative case as their direct object:
die meisten deutschen verben are used with verbs that indicate indirect objects, such as:
er gibt ihr ein Buch (He gives her a book) - ihr is the indirect object in the dative case, and ein Buch is the direct object in the accusative case.sie hilft ihm (She helps him) - ihm is the indirect object in the dative caseich kaufe mir ein Auto (I am buying myself a car) - mir (the indirect object in dative case) is optional, as one could use a direct object instead: ich kaufe ein Auto. However, German uses dative often, where English might not. For example, in German, you give the bus to the bus driver, not give the bus-driver to the bus. give the bus driver in German means giving the bus to the bus driver. The bus is used in the dative case. dem Busfahrer is dative and den Buss is accusative. Here is a list of verbs which take the dative case as the direct object: antworten, brauchen, danken, fehlen, folgen, helfen, hören, kennen, glauben, leid tun, gehören ,lieben, mögen, neidisch sein, nutzen, raten, scheinen, schmecken, sagen, sich vorstellen, sprechen, stehen, tun, verzeihen, widersprechen, wünschenThe dative case is required for the indirect object in German. It also occurs after certain prepositions, especially prepositions that take the dative or accusative case:
aus (out of, from)außer (except for, besides)bei (at, by, near)mit (with)nach (after, to)seit (since, for)von (from, by)zu (to, at, toward)Remember that many common German verbs that seem like they should be dative in English actually require accusative in German:
Related Topics: Dativ, accusative case, genitive case, nominative case