Dative

OK, here is the most complex of the four cases, the dative. There are quite a few instances in a sentence where the dative can appear. Let's just tackle them one instance at a time.

Indirect Object

The indirect object of a sentence is the noun(s) to which or from which the verb is refering. In English we would use the prepositions to or from to signal the indirect object in a sentence, but German doesn't use prepositions in this manner. The reason is that the dative and accusative cases are distinctly different for all of the articles and pronouns, so using a preposition to signal the indirect object is unnecessary. Once you learn the patterns it is easy to tell the direct (accusative case) object from the indirect (dative case) object.

There really aren't that many German verbs which can take both a direct and an indirect object. A few of the more common ones are bringen (to bring), geben (to give), kaufen (to buy), sagen (to say), schenken (to send), and schreiben (to write).

Dative Verbs

Just to keep things interesting, German has several dozen verbs which require their direct objects to be in the dative case instead of the accusative case. Some of the more common ones are listed in the table below.

These verbs share a common characteristic: their direct object is usually a person. But be careful: with verbs like glauben and others which can take an inanimate direct object, that object would then be in the accusative case. For example: Ich glaube es nicht is the correct form for I don't believe it. Also, not every verb that refers to a person takes the dative case, for example lieben (to love).

Also, German verbs that begin with zu- invariably take the dative case. For example, zuhören (to listen to), zusagen (to agree to), and zustimmen (to agree to).

Object of Certain Prepositions

There are several prepositions that always take the dative case, plus several more that take it depending on the usage in a sentence. For details on them and their usage, see the section on prepositions.

Dative Adjectives

Many adjectives are used with the dative case. For most of them, there is an implied to or with action in English, so the connection to the dative does make some logical sense. For example, the sentence Er sieht seinem Bruder sehr ähnlich would be translated as He looks very much like his brother or He is very similar to his brother. See how the "to" relationship is either implied or expressly stated in the translation? Well, usually so, but like many facets of the language, you ultimately have to memorize which adjectives always take the dative. Many common ones are listed below. Notice that some share a common root to verbs that always use the dative.

Possession

There is a special usage of the dative with possessive phrases, but since it is closely related to the genitive case, see the section on the genitive case for an explanation of its usage.