den Apfel (masculine accusative) → ihndas Mäuschen (neuter accusative) → esdie Blume (feminine accusative) → sie. you, he, we) that replace nouns or noun phrases. Become a Lingolia Plus member to access these additional exercises. In this sentence, "I" is the subject pronoun, like is the verb and "you" is an object pronoun (in German accusative). © 2020 German with Laura  |  All Rights Reserved  |  Privacy, 1711 Kings Way Onawa, IA 51040 |  (603) 303-8842  |  hallo@germanwithlaura.com, German pronouns are trickier than English ones, some particular (<– read: memorizable) verbs, adjectives, and prepositions require that the following noun be in the, First, fill up the nominative ‘slot’ with your subject noun / pronoun, the various ways to say ‘you’ (compared to just our 1 way in English! Accusative Case – Declension of Pronouns in German Grammar, Declension Table: German Pronouns in Accusative, Overview of the Genitive, Dative and Accusative. German, however, splits the ‘object’ pronouns into TWO groups: accusative (‘direct object’) pronouns and dative (‘indirect object’ pronouns). Thankfully, this issue is relevant ONLY in the 3rd person singular and I’ll show you a shortcut for how to remember the different, gendered versions of ‘it’ (keep reading!). But, when used as a relative pronoun, der can change from den to dem to dessen, depending on the case in which it’s used. She has only found her father’s hat, not hers. To help simplify things, note that the reflexive and personal pronouns are the same, except for the third person pronoun. That's why we are using "dich" and not "du". You can do that! Here are our same 3 example sentences from above, but with the gendered pronouns (‘it’) (bolded) now! . Taking note of repeated pronouns and other patterns makes learning pronouns easier. For example, if it’s the direct object, it will change to den (Accusative case). Ich gebe sie der Katze. Hopefully the concept of how to use accusative pronouns when talking about people seems pretty straightforward to you now. But German has a masculine ‘it’, a feminine ‘it’, and a neuter ‘it’. How do you know when to use the accusative pronouns vs. the nominative or dative ones? They are being seen or heard (by the subject!). Keep the following rules in mind when positioning your dative and accusative objects in a sentence: The dative object will always come before the accusative object. English has ‘object’ pronouns (me, you, him, her, it, us, you [all], them that you saw above) that get used for BOTH the accusative AND dative cases. We use pronouns in the accustive case: after certain verbs (accusative object), e. g. suchen, finden, … Example: Karin sucht ihren Hut. And both languages use them the same way (to replace names, nouns, and noun phrases). Are you tired of sounding like a 7-year old learning how to read? Dative pronouns. But what do accusative pronouns replace? (I like you.) But that still leaves us with these points: Using accusative pronouns to talk about people — her, him, them, etc. Keep reading for the practical whens & hows of accusative pronouns: when exactly do you use them (<– there’s a rule for that) and how do you pick the right one (<– we’ll hash that out, too). Sie hat nur den Hut ihres Vaters gefunden, nicht ihren. For example, we can say I see them. This means that if you’re replacing a masculine noun object with a pronoun, the pronoun also has to be masculine. I like to ride bike — Ich fahre gern Fahrrad.You need to brush your teeth — Du musst dir die Zähne putzen.You (formal) are most welcome here — Sie heißen hier herzlich willkommen!He plays viola quite well — Er spielt gut Bratsche.She enjoys juggling — Sie mag das Jonglieren. Ohne ihn will sie nicht aus dem Haus gehen. To use the right pronoun, you have to know which ‘person’ your noun is in. That's why we are using "dich" and not "du". Possessive pronoun endings(i.e. Because word order is freer in German grammar, we use the accusative case to mark the direct object in a sentence by using different personal pronouns and changing the ending of masculine possessive pronouns. Pronouns And The Accusative Case. But sometimes we’re talking about objects (e.g. Only the masculine possessive pronouns differ from the nominative. Its purpose is to clearly demonstrate the direct object of the sentence, or the person/thing receiving the action. — is not so bad! The most important slot — that gets filled up first — is the nominative. That’s easy enough. ), The 3rd person accusative pronouns are IDENTICAL to the nominative ones, All-in-all, between the nominative & accusative pronouns, you have only 12 total you have to know in German — and that’s the same number of English pronouns we have! Whatever noun (or pronoun) is the subject of your sentence goes into that slot (usually the very first word in the sentence! And this difference impacts many words — including pronouns. Most personal pronouns in the accusative have a different form from the nominative, but some stay the same. Your German will sound more authentic if you don’t repeat all those nouns, but use pronouns instead (e.g. When these articles and nouns are replaced with pronouns such as the German equivalents of “he” and “it,” these pronouns too must change to reflect the dative case. Learning what the German accusative pronouns are is pretty simple … learning when to use them … well, I’m going to try to make that as EASY as possible. For example: For example: 'The girl sees her father.' It is used for the thing or person receiving the direct action of a verb. It’s really just a matter of sentence structure. And the key exception to #2 is this: some particular (<– read: memorizable) verbs, adjectives, and prepositions require that the following noun be in the dative case. Possessive pronoun endings follow the endings used for ein, and accusative relative pronouns are the same as accusative definite articles. The first noun is the subject (nominative case) and then we default to the next noun being a direct object (accusative case). Look again at the 3rd Person Singular section of the personal pronouns table and take special note of the very last letter on each pronoun: 3rd person singular, masculine: ihn3rd person singular, neuter: es3rd person singular, feminine: sie. There are a few things about accusative pronouns that frequently trip students up. Examples: Ich mag dich. The nominative and accusative are identical for fem and neut. with accusative pronouns? Ich gebe sie der Katze. Answer: the direct object of the sentence. Choosing nominative vs. accusative pronouns = EASY. OK, all of that is not so bad! We’ll also suss out areas of common confusion & mistakes so you can avoid those pitfalls! Now, look at this accusative case snippet of what I call the All-In-One Declensions Chart: The -n, -s, -e strong declensions    listed in the chart snippet are the same last letters we see on the accusative pronouns ihn, es, sie, and sie. You will use personal, reflexive, relative, and possessive pronouns, all in the dative case. If you haven’t had a chance to look at my Accusative Case Guide, I totally recommend that! Thinking about needing to use different forms of ‘it’ that have gender is a bit of a stretch for English speakers. ← Yikes. Fortunately, there are some quick-and-easy rules for that! Oooh, what’s that about? You need to have the complete All-In-One Declensions Chart memorized anyway, so it’s great that it does double-duty for you by covering the declensions on the gendered pronouns ‘it’, too (in the accusative ^^ and also in the nominative & dative!). The table provides an overview of personl and possessive pronouns in the accusative case. Accusative case changes "du" to "dich". Frank likes his dog. Got it. With Lingolia Plus you can access 11 additional exercises about Accusative, as well as 843 online exercises to improve your German. But we can’t say I see they (<– that’s a nominative pronoun!). And this is a bit trickier because German is a language with noun gender — even for objects. durch, für, gegen, ohne, um Example: That narrows down our pronoun options to just those listed under ‘Acc’, but how do you know which one of those to pick? I buy an apple. German Sentence Structure . Every pronoun can take the nominative or any of the other cases. The accusative case is the second of four cases in German. Explaination: The verb "mögen" (to like) takes a direct object. (accusative pronoun). The only thing that is left is to dissect our accusative pronouns table one final time, noticing patterns (to help us remember the pronouns more easily) and cutting out material wherever we can (so we don’t have to remember as many!).