Introduction to German Nominative and Accusative

The text about the Hotel DELUX contained a number of nouns. All German nouns have grammatical gender. They are masculine, feminine or neuter. The article for each gender is different. The German for ‘the’ can be der, die or das. And the German for ‘a/an’ can be either ein, for masculine and neuter or eine, for feminine nouns.

  The articles above are used for nouns on their own, or when they are the subject of the sentence. This is called the nominative case. If a noun is the direct object in a sentence (that is, it is on the receiving end of the action), you use the accusative case. In the accusative case the masculine article is different.

Here are some examples.

  Here is a summary of the indefinite articles in the nominative and the accusative.

Here are the definite articles.

  Because of these changes affected by different cases in German, it is important to learn the gender of German nouns. You also use the accusative with the phrase Ich möchte or Ich hätte gern, for example when ordering food or drink or asking for an item in a shop. Again, it is important that you remember the gender of the noun: for example, der Kaffee, die Torte, das Stück (a piece).