Language/German/Grammar/Cases

There are four cases in German: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

• Nominative indicates the subject of a verb, such as "the monkey" in "The monkey eats a banana." "Der Affe isst eine Banane."
• Accusative indicates the direct object of a transitive verb, such as "a pen" in "He bought a pen." "Er hat einen Stift gekauft."
• Dative indicates the noun or pronoun which receives something if it's not a subject, such as "him" in "His father will give him a tricycle." "Sein Vater wird ihm ein Dreirad geben."
• Genitive usually indicates the possesor of something, such as "my mom" in "This is a helicopter of my mom." "Das ist ein Hubschrauber meiner Mutter."

This lesson means to keep brief. It only covers the main usage, to make people understand quickly.