Accusative Case in German (der Akkusativ)
In this lesson, we will focus on the accusative case in German.
Accusative Case in German
German cases describe a noun or a pronoun’s grammatical role in a sentence. First, take a quick look at the roles of the cases in German shown in Table 1.1:
| CASES | ROLE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative (Nominativ) | subject | takes action |
| Accusative (Akkusativ) | direct object | receives action |
| Dative (Dativ) | indirect object | to/for whom action is taken |
| Genitive (Genitiv) | possessive | indicates the owner of someone or something |
The accusative case in German is the equivalent of the direct object in English and shows us who or what is affected by the action in a sentence.
Der Mann (Nomiative case) hat einen Hund (Accusative case).
The man has a dog.
“Der Mann” is a subject doing the action in the nominative case. As you know, subjects conjugate verbs. So in this sentence, “haben” is conjugated “by der Mann”. “Einen Hund” is a direct object affected by the subject’s action, which is why it is accusative.
❗ You can find the direct object in German by finding the verb and asking, “wen (whom) or was (what)”.
Julia liebt ihren Mann. (Wen liebt Julia?)
Julia loves her husband. (Whom does Julia love?)
Ich habe einen Hund. (Was hast du?)
I have a dog. (What do you have?)
❗ The primary function of the accusative case in German is to mark the direct object (direktes Object = Akkusativobjekt) of transitive verbs.
Er hat einen Hund
He has a dog.
❗ Accusative is also used with accusative prepositions.
Ich habe einen Tasche für meinen Bruder.
I have a bag for my brother.
❗ Accusative case is can be used with time expressions (mit Zeitangaben)
Jeden Tag gehe ich joggen.
Every day I go jogging.
Some of them are shown in Table 1.2:
| jeden Tag | every day |
| jeden Morgen | every morning |
| letzten Sommer | last summer |
| diesen Winter | this winter |
| den ganzen Abend | the whole evening |
❗ Verbs with accusative case (verben mit Akkusativ) are used in the accusative.
-Ich habe einen Hund
I have a dog.
-Ich möchte eine Cola
I would like a cola
-Ich nehme einen Hamburger.
I’ll have a hamburger.
Some German accusative verbs are shown in Table 1.3:
| suchen | to search |
| finden | to find |
| kaufen | to buy |
| lesen | to read |
| besuchen | to visit |
| bestellen | to order |
| trinken | to drink |
| essen | to eat |
German articles change in the accusative case is shown in Table 1.4:
| CASES | MASCULINE | FEMININE | NEUTRAL | PLURAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der ein | die eine | das ein | die ✖️ |
| Accusative | den einen | die eine | das ein | die ✖️ |
Object in the accusative case can be a person (Person) or a thing (Sache), and also it can be singular or plural:
Thomas sieht KoJo.
Thomas sees KoJo.
Thomas sieht einen Papagei.
Thomas sees a parrot.
Thomas sieht seinen Papagei.
Thomas sees his parrot.
Thomas sieht ihn.
Thomas sees him.
