The dative case is used to indicate the indirect object of a sentence. It answers the question: To or for whom? Just as with the nominative and accusative, the articles and personal pronouns change in the dative.
The dative case in German is one of the four German Cases and home of the indirect object, but it can also be used for indicating location. The indirect object is the noun that is affected in some way by the subject performing an action on another noun — in other words, this is often the “beneficiary” of the action.
Example: The mother gives her children the ice cream.
In the example, the children are the indirect object because they receive the ice cream (direct object) that is being given by the mother (subject). If the sentence were rewritten to make the ice cream the indirect object (The mother gives the ice cream her children), it would imply the ice cream is capable of eating the children. This becomes clearer in the first example when we consider that there is an implied preposition (“to”) that is often omitted in English, and which would precede the indirect object (“to her children”). Here is the German equivalent of the example sentence:
Beispiel: Die Mutter gibt ihren Kindern das Eis.
In German, no preposition is needed here: the dative case itself marks the recipient. Note also the dative plural noun ending. In the dative case, plural nouns add an ‘n’ wherever possible; however, loan words and other plurals that add an ‘s’ cannot add an ‘n.’
Beispiel: Die Krankenpflegerin hört die Schreie von den Babys.
The dative case, like the accusative, has a set number of prepositions that are only dative: aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, and zu.
Further, the personal pronouns change from accusative to dative as seen in our German cases chart below:
