Accusative Verbs in German (Verben mit Akkusativ)

10/26/2021

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In this lesson, you will learn the accusative verbs in German (Verben mit Akkusativ).

Accusative Verbs in German

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 sometihng

Table 1.1

❗ There are just two cases in English: the subject (nominative) and the object (accusative & dative combined into “the objective case”).

❗ You can find the direct object in English by finding the verb and asking, “what or whom?”.

Subject + verb + direct object (Accusative)
Step 1. Find the verb
Step 2. Ask, “what or whom?”

A direct object is a person or thing that receives the verb’s action.
Harry mows the grass.
Jane water the flowers.
I fed the cat.

❗ You can find the direct object in German by finding the verb and asking, “wen or was?”.

Person	Thing
wen (whom)	was (what)

Table 1.2

Step 1. Find the verb
Step 2. Ask, “was or wen?”

Harry mäht das Gras.
Jane gießt die Blumen.
Ich habe den Hund gefüttert.

Some verbs in German only take the accusative case form of the noun. Accusative verbs that are commonly used in German are shown in Table 1.3: