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[GERMAN] Dativ vs Akkusativ (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 week ago by Lazycog@sopuli.xyz to c/languagelearning@sopuli.xyz

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Hallo!

So I thought that maybe we have people here who can help me with this:

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding when to use Dativ vs Akkusativ in German. I understand that specific prepositions require specific cases, but in general I often find myself applying the wrong case in a sentence.

In some sentences it is quite clear:

Ich habe den Stift gekauft. (Pen being the direct object that is being bought)

But there are cases like this:

Ich schlafe in meinem auto in meiner pause (I know the order is wrong, but the cases seem to stay as they are even if you change the order)

Here I would have thought that the car is the direct object. I struggle with this a lot and often apply akkusativ case wrongly.

I would appreciate if someone could help me with understanding this better. For example: Why is the car not the direct object in the above example?

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[–] CHINESEBOTTROLL@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

But even that has exceptions such as "ich gehe zu DEM auto". So I guess you would have to learn by heart which prepositions go with which case and only in the ambiguous cases (auf,in...) you use the movement idea?

[–] GandalftheBlack@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, prepositions do complicate matters. The principle of motion towards vs. location/moment away from helps with those prepositions which can take both accusative and dative, but for other prepositions you do just have to learn.