Accusative Case
Accusative Case
German marks the direct object of a sentence by changing the article, not the noun — a system English abandoned almost entirely except in pronouns like "whom" and "him."
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Case marks grammatical role — English mostly lost this
Der Mann sieht den Hund. (The man sees the dog.)
The man sees the dog.
English shows who's doing what almost entirely through word order (subject before verb before object) — "the man" stays "the man" whether it's the subject or object. German still uses case endings to mark this explicitly, on top of word order. The accusative case marks the direct object — the thing directly receiving the action. English keeps a fossil of this system only in its pronouns: "he" (subject) becomes "him" (object), which is exactly the same kind of change German makes to der.
Only the masculine article changes: der → den
der Hund → den Hund (masc.) / die Frau → die Frau (fem., unchanged) / das Kind → das Kind (neut., unchanged)
the dog → the dog (as object) / the woman → the woman / the child → the child
The good news: in the accusative case, only masculine nouns change their article at all (der → den, ein → einen). Feminine and neuter articles look identical in the nominative and accusative. This means the accusative is really just "one word to watch" — memorize der→den and you've covered the entire rule for this case.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Ich sehe den Mann. | ikh ZAY-eh dayn mahn | I see the man. |
| Ich sehe die Frau. | ikh ZAY-eh dee frow | I see the woman. |
| Ich sehe das Kind. | ikh ZAY-eh dahs kint | I see the child. |
| Ich habe einen Hund. | ikh HAH-beh EYE-nen hoont | I have a dog. |
| Ich kaufe einen Apfel. | ikh KOW-feh EYE-nen AHP-fel | I buy an apple. |
| für den Mann | fewr dayn mahn | for the man |