Hello everyone,
and welcome back to our
brain wrecking, cramp inducing, no mercy having German summer boot camp.
Yup, that’s a thing now :)!
Last week, we got sweaty over the question how to translate before and after and this week, we’ll take on one of everyone’s favorite grammar topics:
Cases
And we’ll do something a little bit unusual, something that is kind of rare to find but that I think might be really helpful… we’ll eliminate gender from the equation.
Cases are quite a big topic. There’s the different endings for different word groups, then the question of which case to use with verbs and which case to use with prepositions. And overall it’s way too much to digest at once, so it’s broken down into little chunks. Like… the section about Accusative case in a beginners book. Or a chart of the definite articles for all cases. Or a lecture about Two Way Prepositions and which case to use.
There are many ways, to break up the big topic cases into smaller chunks, but there is one thing that most textbooks and exercises you can find online have in common… they deal with all three genders at a time.
And I’m not so sure this is very helpful.
You see, the grammatical gender itself has NOTHING to do with cases in the sense that they don’t influence each other. They just both influence which entry of a table is correct.
But picking the right gender for a noun and the right case are two completely independent tasks. If you got the case right but you were wrong about the gender, your answer will be wrong and you’ll have this little moment of failure. And maybe you don’t even know whether the case or the gender was the problem.
And another thing is, that you can’t build up automatisms if you’re constantly gender hopping. Let me give you an example…
- I see a dog. It is running.
It translated to er, because Hund is masculine in German. For an English speaker it is already an effort not to say “es” here. By knowing the gender, by knowing that it’s NOT es, your free up brain capacity that can actually really notice this it and thus build awareness.
Not sure if that made sense. But either way… I want to try out a new kind of exercise and see how it works for you and how you like it.
The exercise
And I’ll give a warning right away…
!! This exercise is a challenge for B1 learners !!
You can of course try it as a beginner. In fact, you might learn a LOT. But it will be virtually impossible for you to get even close to 50% correct. And even for B1 learners, it is a challenge.
So here’s what we’ll do: I’ll give you a statement in English and you have to translate it, using the proper words in the proper case.
And you’ll need pretty much the entire case skill set… Here’s an example.
- “I see a dog. It is sitting on a table. Is it yours?”
“No, I don’t have a dog.” - “Ich sehe einen Hund. Er sitzt auf einem Tisch. Ist es deiner?”
“Nein, ich habe keinen Hund.”
Articles, pronouns, indefinite pronouns, possessives, negations, two way prepositions… it’s pretty much all there, except for adjective endings and noun endings.
But what you don’t need to worry about is the gender. Dog is masculine, table is masculine. All these nouns will be masculine. So you can forget about the other genders completely. Still, I know it’s quite a tough exercise.
But the goal isn’t to just fill in some gaps with the correct form from a table.
The goal is rather that you build up a feeling how a masculine entity “moves” through an everyday statement or dialogue. We’ll go over lots of really common situations, and you’ll see that there’s a rhythm to it. And even if you feel lost in the beginning, I’m pretty sure you’ll get better toward the end.
If you have to answer something and you just pick the right answer based on gut feeling… PERFECT!! That’s the goal. And if you get it wrong, that’s also great because then you can analyze why you made a mistake and that’ll (slowly) build gut feeling.
Now, of course translation is a super mega challenge, so if you feel like that’s too much for now, then just click on the “?” to get the German version with gaps to fill. NO SHAME IN THAT!!
The solution is in the audio and you can also show it by clicking the circle O.
And if you want, you can type your solution into the text field. It doesn’t check it but you can compare it with the correct answer.
Oh and one more thing… I have a few examples where I’m using the possessive her and hers. I didn’t notice it right away, but now I realized that this might be confusing, since I said everything is masculine. The thing that is hers is masculine, not her herself.
I thought about changing the examples, but then I left them in because I thought it’s good to have this contrast between sein- (his) to ihr- (her) in the exercise.
Just wanted to mention that :).
Oh and yet another thing…. ONLY the nouns that are bold are all masculine. The ones you have to do the case work with.If you do translation, you will have to deal with all genders. Forgot to mention that but some people pointed that out in the comments :).
So now, I’d say… viel Spaß!!
What? Oh… you want a table with all the options?
Well, nope… since we’re doing pronouns and articles and possessives and all that, it would be a bunch of tables. The idea is NOT that you use a table. Just try to do it from your head, and if you don’t know an option… write it down. You’ll need it again. I think that’s the better way to learn than just picking a table cell.
***
“No, I have never seen him.”
“Nein, ich habe ____ nie gesehen.”
“Nein, ich habe ihn nie gesehen.”
“Yeah, I found it really good.”
“Ja, ich fand ____ sehr gut.”
“Ja, ich fand ihn sehr gut.”
“Yeah, it was really really really really really really good.”
“Ja, ____ war wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich gut.”
“Ja, er war wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich wirklich gut.”
“No, I’ll meet with him this afternoon.”
“Nein, ich treffe mich mit ____ heute Nachmittag.”
“Nein, ich treffe mich mit ihm heute Nachmittag.”
“No, I don’t have one either.”
“Nein, ich habe auch ____.”
“Nein, ich habe auch keinen.”
“It’s not mine.”
“Das ist nicht ____ .“
“Das ist nicht meiner.“
“No, it‘s not.”
“Nein, ist ____ nicht.”
“Nein, ist er nicht.”
***
Yeay, you made it.
I’m super mega curious… how did you do? Was it difficult? Was it too difficult? Do you hate me now?
Seriously, do you like this kind of exercise and do you think it is helpful for getting a feeling for cases? Let me know all your feedback (good and bad) in the comments.
As I said, it’s an experiment :).
Either way, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. Have a great week and till next time.
I did lousy, less than 50%. And I love it! I could feel the little tendrils of Sprachgefühl growing. Separating it out by gender is incredibly helpful! I would LOVE to let all those charts gather dust, and rely on Sprachgefühl a lot more. Thank you!!
Less than 50 is perfectly fine. Could you pin-point weak areas? Like… stuff that you got wrong consistently?
Dog is masculine, table is masculine. All these nouns will be masculine. So you can forget about the other genders completely.
Oh whoops. I’m a forgotten woman. May I do this exercise ?
Seriously was there a reason behind this? I thought there were more feminine nouns than masculine or neuter.
I’m guessing masculine is most convenient for an exercise like this because the case endings are most distinct from each other – the definite article in each case is different (der, den, dem, des), unlike feminine or neuter. That means that it’s harder to get things right by guessing, rather than actually “sensing” which case fits.
I think the excercise is perfect as it is, because you don´t have to think the whole time, if you get the correct gender of the word or not. This is a good way to concentrate on the the most important: the cases. I won´t think too much why exactly he starts with the masculine nouns and not with the feminine, because that´s not the point. And as the title suggests, more are to come.
Indeed, I’ll do more :)
Forgive the mansplanation but I think it’s pretty evenly balanced on the gender split. Roughly 40% masculine, 40% feminine and 20% neuter. If anything, masculine edges it. Here’s something I found on the internet:
“The distribution of the three genders in German is as follows. There are 4164 monomorphemic nouns listed in the CELEX database (Baayen, Piepenbrock, & Gulikers, 1995). Fifty-one of these have multiple genders (e.g., der See [the lake]vs. die See [the sea]). Of the remaining 4113 entries, 1758(42.74%) have masculine gender, 1567 (38.10%) have feminine gender, and 788 (19.16%) are neuter”
Seriously though, if you’re going to take gender out of the equation there’s no point using feminine-only or neutral-only examples because there is no article change between nominative and accusative.
Oh wow, I actually also thought feminine nouns were the most numerous. Not that it matters but still nice to know :)
For feminine nouns the nominative (die) is the same as the accusative (die) which isn’t helpful for an exercise where you need to be able to tell them apart…
Oh wow, I didn’t expect that to be an issue.
So… this exercise is partially meant as a trial. If people like it, I will do “feminine” and “neuter”. I just had to start with one. As others have said, “masculine” is the best here because the cases are all distinct. But also, when native speakers go over the articles, they say “der, die, das”. That’s the order that comes to mind.
Let’s not forget… we’re talking about grammatical gender here. Which has little connection to the gender of a human being.
Interestingly, my oldest son (who will be eingeschult next month) always came home from his preschool German class this year saying they worked on “die-der-das.” I’m not sure if he was just mixed up about what the teacher said, or if they deliberately changed the order from the traditional one.
Oh, so it begins here now :D
Hey Emmanuel great exercise! I’m having trouble exactly with Dative and Accusative and this is just perfect, really like the format! :D
One question: in example 19 there is a receiver (in Dative) and the thing being received (in Accusative). But in example 10, that has the same form, both are in Dative. Why is that?
Von always controls the dative case.
Aber
M, hat ihm ihren Plan erklärt .
Exactly :). Thanks for the alternative phrasing. That’s totally idiomatic, too!!
Oh, that’s awesome! For a moment there all that I know crumbled :D
Thanks for the answers!
–One question: in example 19 there is a receiver (in Dative) and the thing being received (in Accusative). But in example 10, that has the same form, both are in Dative. Why is that?
I think the problem here is that “told” in English doesn’t need a “to” so “Maria told him” looks like accusative but isn’t really. If however you think of it as “Maria explained to him” it might be clearer why it needs the dative.
A sentence can have multiple indirect objects e.g. “He changed from a man to a wolf.”
It’s much simpler… in 10 we have the preposition “von”. That’s what demands the Dative. It doesn’t matter what happens in the rest of the sentence and what objects there are. As soon as you have a preposition, you’re in the “preposition”-branch of cases.
Right . . . so how come in the introductory e-mail to this exercise you talk about the “Übung von letztes Mal” and not the “Übung von letztem Mal”? Is this just a colloquial exception or something? I can’t figure out any grammatical justification for it.
Number 10 has a preposition before the thing.
“von ihrem Plan”
As soon as there’s a preposition, the preposition determines the case.
Wow,I did good surprisingly for A2 :). My question is, why is it deiner instead of dein in 18.Sorry if it is a bit of a stupid question :d
Not stupid at all… a classic A2 question, I would say :).
In a nutshell… these pronouns get a marker of the gender.
– mein Hund -> meiner
– deine Frau -> deine
– dein Auto – > deins
You can look for indefinite pronouns and possessive pronouns, if you want a table/chart :)
Here’s how I remember this. There are three situations (masculine nominative, neuter nominative, and neuter accusative) where the indefinite article (ein/mein/kein/…) is used without an ending. German was like, “shouldn’t I follow the pattern with the endings?” and German’s friend was like, “No man, it’s OK. Relax and mix it up a little a little.” And German was like, “Well, I guess people can tell the gender and case from context anyway…” So, that’s why it’s just ein Bier, dein Hund, etc. But, then people started leaving away the noun, and German got upset, because German is not okay with gender ambiguity of unnamed things. So it brought the endings back. (Basically “ein” cannot exist by itself without a noun afterwards.) For example:
“Ich hätte gerne ein Bier.” (No ending because there is a noun there.)
“Ich möchte auch eins.” (You need the ending because Bier is omitted.)
“Einer hat das letzte Kalte schon gekriegt. Möchtest du ein Lauwarmes?” (In this last sentence, the noun Bier is left away, but the adjective conveys the gender and gets promoted to noun-like status, so “ein” gets demoted back a plain old article :-) )
Yup, that’s pretty much it. You need an indication of gender and case there in some way, either by the word or the ending.
Wow.. that was helpful . I actually wrote down my answer first but still I made alot of mistakes.. not only the gender but the way I translated some of my answers which is identical to English(sentence order ) . Can you make more exercises like this.. it is very helpful especially for self learners.
Yup, I will. Glad you liked it!!
Hi, just some questions if you don’t mind. No need to answer all of them lol but I thought I’d ask in order to fill them knowledge gaps.
1) For No. 3, why “fand” vs. “habe gefunden”? Is “finden” generally an exception like modal verbs, or is there something specific about this case that requires the past conjugation rather than the present perfect?
2) Regarding No. 4, what would the difference in meaning be if were to use “nochmals” instead of “mal wieder”? That’s what I put first :/
3) I still don’t know when to use “magen” vs “gefallen”…
4) Is there a one-word colloquial equivalent for using “wirklich” like six times in a row? Doesn’t “echt” kinda capture that connotation?
5) In my answer to No. 8, I switched the placement of “einen Anruf” and “von meinem Chef”, putting the genitive phrase first instead. Does that sound weird? Am I emphasizing the wrong noun with this word order?
6) On No. 11, would “zum” not be used instead of “in den”? I thought “in den” would highlight the action of entering the establishment versus traveling TO the location in general.
7) For No. 15, is “deswegen” also appropriate? I have a hard time differentiating the two besides the tendency to also use “deshalb” in translations of English “therefore”.
8) So… in No. 17, you wrote “das” and not “er”. Am I on the right track in saying the justification comes from “das” being used more as a demonstrative, like “that”? If the dog were actually his, could he respond saying “Er ist ja süß”? (It seems like the answer to No. 19 may relate somehow.)
9) So is “weit” more like “far” (which I guess could be “fern” too, right?) and breit “wide”? I’m seeing both listed as appropriate and common translations for “broad” and “wide” too.
New site user here :) Really enjoying your explanations on the free articles I’ve been able to read, especially your comments on etymology and meanderings into helpful mnemonics.
Tristan :)
Nice questions! I’ll at least point you in the right direction :)
1) Case has NO influence on which tense to use. The reason I used “fand” instead of “hat gefunden” is that we’re using an abstract sense of “finden”. Nothing was really found. Check out my series on past tense, I go over all the relevant “exceptions” there and I also talk about the pattern when which form sounds idiomatic.
2) “mal wieder” sounds casual and refers to something happening every now and then. “nochmals” sounds like we’re talking about an action happening once again in one specific moment/time span.
“noch mal” without the s is more common though.
3)
Check out my article about “mögen, gern, gefallen” :) If that doesn’t help then let me know why exactly you’re unsure about the examples here, so I know where the problem is.
4) “echt” and “wirklich” are synonyms in that sense.
5) Yes, “von meinem Chef einen Anruf bekommen” does sound kind of weird. There’s a strange emphasis on “Anruf”. The reason is that “von meinem Chef” is more like a qualifier for the call than a separate element. What did you get? A call from my boss. It’s a call with some extra info.
If my it were a book, then “von meinem Chef ein Buch” sounds fine, because now we have two separate things.
If the boss wrote the book but didn’t give it to us, then again, “von meinem Chef” would come after book as a qualifier.
Hope that helps :)
6) Good question!! Both “zum” and “in den” sound idiomatic to me.
You have to enter the building, so “in den” does make sense. And we’re referring to supermarket as “supermarket”, not by its brand name.
7)
It’s the exact same.
8) Very good question. I didn’t really notice that this could be confusing. You could also say “es ist nicht meiner”
It’s a very generic “it/that” but it also exists in English, I think.
– It’s me.
– That’s my husband over there.
As for using “ja”… nope!! That sounds off in that context.
9) I think I should have said “weit”, actually :). That’s the standard term for clothes, not “breit”. Just realized it too late.
Thanks for asking many questions I also have!
I found it really useful. Got maybe 60-70% right. Tried without the help of the translations so made a few mistakes with those. Would love more of these.
Wow, 60-70 without translations is AWESOME.
My suggestion is to do it again a couple of days from now and just try to translate it without writing anything by saying it loudly.
Hello, Emanuel,
OMG, I haven’t got enough time to keep up with your workout challenges!!!
Typos:
everyday is just the one word
“no merci” instead of “no mercy” – is that a typo or are you trying to say “no, thank you” in French and forgot the n in “no”? (and no, I’m not Canadian, to answer your question from the last post!)
“one of the everyone’s favorite grammar topics” (you have a “the” too many)
“then the question which case to use” (then the question of which case to use)
“but there one thing that most textbooks” (but there is one thing that most textbooks)
“You can of course try it a a beginner” (as a beginner)
“if you don’t know and option” (an option)
“curios” (curious and yes, even in American English!) Curios, BTW, are rare, rather intriguing things, so if you meant to say you’re now super mega rare and intriguing, then you don’t have a typo here :)
Should I even try this exercise? You piqued my curiosity by saying it’s super difficult… but I’m only A2… I’m scared… but I’ll give it a try anyway!
I’ll let you know if I hate you once I’ve attempted this ;)
Bis bald!
Uff… soo many mistakes this time. Thanks a lot for these!! I’m curious about “the question of which case to use”… does that really not work without the “of”? Like.. never?
But yeah, definitely give it a try!! If you fail, it’ll show you where you have gaps :)
Nope… at least in this context it doesn’t work without the “of”. I can think of sentences where you could have no “of”, such as “the question, which I’m asking, is…”, but that would be a completely different phrase!
Yeah, you need the “of” – if you leave it out, it needs to be like this:
– …the question, “Which case should you use?”
And that would be perfectly fine. You’d just have to start a new sentence after that, so the “of” phrasing is more handy if you’re sticking it in the middle of a sentence.
So in spoken English it would basically work, since there is no punctuation. That’s why I thought it worked. I was sure I had heard that before.
It’s actually the opposite (as per my previous comments): in spoken English, “the question of which case one should use” is much more common (perhaps what you will hear exclusively). In formal written English, “the question which case one should use” is perfectly correct and, according to at least some style guides, the preferred phrasing.
Wait, no… I didn’t notice the different word order. It’s “of which case you should use” or :”of which case should you use?”, right?
Yeah, “of which case should you use” is just wrong. Sounds wrong, doesn’t work at all. Indirect and direct questions sound really different in English, for whatever reason.
– [Guy] “What case should I use?”
– [Me] “Uh, hang on… Hey Thomas, this guy is asking what case he should use. Do you know?”
– [Thomas] “Oh, hmm… If it’s a question of what case he should use, it’d be better to ask Maria.”
Basically, if you stick the subject between the modal and the main verb (“should ____ use”), it always sounds like you’re directly asking the question itself.
I think in spoken English, the “of” can be so soft and subtle that it’s easy to miss. It’s basically a very quick schwa tacked on to the end of “question” in that kind of sentence (“it’s a questionawhat case…”).
I know of a definite divergence in the need for “of”, at least between British and American English. If you think of the phrase “not such a big deal”, this can also be phrased, in British English, as “not that big a deal” but in American English as far as I can tell, that would have to, be “not that big OF a deal”. I can’t tell what the “of” brings to the proceedings or how its removal could be said to change things either.
“Not that big a deal” is completely idiomatic for AE too, although you definitely hear both (no idea if there’s any regional tendency either way). So including the “of” would be unidiomatic for BE?
I don’t really know what the “of” contributes either, other than giving you that nice triplet feel, like saying “that’s a helluva deal.” Maybe it’s just gotten imported from that kind of phrasing, although I’m not sure I can work out the grammatical logic of that kind of idiom either…
According to English style guides, without “of” is preferable.
“then the question which case to use” (then the question of which case to use)
Academic write here . . . “the question of which” is more common and therefore sounds “right,” but careful style guides (check out, e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style) actually say that “the question which / the question whether” is the traditionally preferred form, with “of” considered superfluous (and therefore undesirable in careful usage).
Perhaps too prescriptive, I don’t know. Just wanted to point out that Emanuel has the backing of strong authorities on his side in this case!
Oh wow… the tables have turned in my favor :D!!
One thing I really find fascinating about English is that it’s a battle field. English speaker cannot agree on what’s right in sooooo many occasions and I don’t me just BE vs AE. One example is the whole “it’s me” vs “it’s I” thing. There’s the rules, then there’s the everyday reality and then there’s exception to the rules…
anyway… now I’m curious to hear how camp “of” defends its case :)
So how do you know what level you are?? I’ve been learning German for more than 30 years and I’m not sure what level I am!
Hmm, you can definitely find placement tests online but it doesn’t really matter all that much, to be honest, unless you want to sign up for a course. I don’t give much attention to these levels on my site, for example.
Why are you asking? Are you thinking about taking a course somewhere?
Hi again,
First I need to warn you that the entire solution pops up when you click the question mark in examples 5, 8 and 16! Because I decided not to attempt the translations yet and focus only on the case words, I don’t know if I would have got those right!
But as for the rest:
OMG, OMG, OMG, I’m soooooooo proud of myself!!!! I got ALLLLLLLLL the other case words right :)))))))
Turns out I don’t hate you now, I think you’re a great teacher, loved this workout, please keep doing stuff like this!!
WOW, that’s AWESOME!!! Seriously… how’s that even possible?! Are you somewhat fluent? There were a LOT of challenges in there.
I know… and I was over the moon to have got all the answers right, it really made my day! I’m very good at maths, so maybe that’s why I get the cases and other grammar issues right (it’s all a matter of logic, after all). As for fluency, my biggest problem is not having enough vocab… yet! Which is why I haven’t attampted the translations, although I will!
Do keep these challenges coming :)
Great excercise! I have 16 from 20 right! And I can´t wait for the next inspirations.
Bis dann ;)
Danke :)
Danke:)
das Date : that’s not masculine… I feel betrayed!
Pretty pleased with my score: around 80% :-)
But, I always forget that you have to say ‘ihm’ and not ‘fur ihn’ in sentences like ‘too wide for him’ -> ihm zu breit.
Whops… you’re right. My description was a bit confusing. There are nouns of all genders to translate… only the bold ones, the ones where you have to find the case, are all masculine. Having ONLY masculine nouns in the the entire exercise would be kind of hard.
I’ll color code the nouns next time, though.
Anyway, congrats for 80%!! DAs ist super!!
Huge thanks you to everyone who paid to support another learner. I’m one of those learners. Can’t thank you enough for supporting this site and the greater language learning community. Your generosity is hugely appreciated. Looking forward to digging in!!
Brilliant! More of the same format please. I’m B1+ and it’s just what I need to lose my stabilisers (metaphorically). Thank you ♀️
Yeay, glad to hear that. I’ll definitely do more!!
I did most of the translation in my head. I did ok. I like the exercise. A good way of building confidence.
Wow, doing it in your head is a challenge. If you want an even bigger one, try saying them slowly as you build them. That’ll work your brain like 10 hours of driving in intense traffic.
I’m so proud of myself! I got all the other case words right.
What’s up with the link to the Indian escort service??
(I’ll spam that in 10 Minutes from now)
Ihre Seite passt genau dazu!
Nach schwerer Arbeit mit so vielen,
der ,es, seiner,
ihm und ihn,
oft braucht ein ”er” was total anderes.
-das heißt=
Etwas feminin!
Wirds gesucht oft in der Zeitung,
DIE Ruberik
Weibliche Begleitung!
Oder – mit der Karrte – aufs Pump es nur zu leisten,
nach den billig Tickets Fernost Reisen!
Abgazzwerke und Seidenblauhemd Fabrik
Egon Krenzstraße 13
Damgarten DDR
4.8.’19
Whops, I wanted to remove the spam link from the original comment and then I forgot. Thansk for the reminder. The problem is that if I leave it up, more spam will flock to this comment and page.
I made a mess of every example but I will try again & hope the some of the lesson sticks. Thanks for such a thought provoking exercise.
Don’t focus too much on getting the exact same phrasing as me. That’s NOT the point. Sometimes, there are even possible phrasings with different case configurations.
Did you try just filling the gaps?
Dankeschön für diese Übung, ich mag sie. Wenn du mir eine Frage erlaubst: am Anfang gibt es ein Beispiel, worin steht:
“Ich sehe einen Hund. Er sitzt auf einem Tisch. Ist es deiner?”
Sollte das nicht „Ist er deiner?“ sein?
Sehr gute Frage!
“ist er deiner?” ist grammatisch richtig, aber nicht so idiomatisch.
Es ist ein sehr “generic” “es”. Das gibt es in Englisch auch.
– The guy there, that’s my husband.
– It was his wife, who did it.
Hoffe, das hilft.
This was a particularly good worksheet.I have done it several times. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Cheers
Catherine
Wow, congrats for doing it several times! That’S actually the way to go with these. First, do it with writing, then a few times just in the head, and then finally, just saying it as you do it :)
Your motivation is inspiring!!
I’m pretty OK with cases by now, at least writing them out like this but… I am always glad of the chance to practice! So a big thank you. Tiny point re Q 20 – in English you get drunk “from” wine, or more commonly (but coarsely colloquial), “off” wine, or in Bristol where I hail from “off of” wine, but never, AFAIK, “of” wine.
18/20 but my grammar has “stuck” remarkably well since school all those years ago. The two that threw me were:
“Ich warte auf den Bus” – I know “auf” takes the accusative with “movement”, and that German sometimes interpreting staying as moving – !!! – , but it didn’t occur to me that warten might behave like bleiben here. But I can see it’s a similar (crazy) logic… :)
“Das ist nicht meiner”. This one clearly confused me because I thought this was an example of the weird case (“predicate nominative”), where subject and object are the same person/thing (or sometimes not the same with sein and some other verbs!) and so both are treated as nominative. As in “Er ist ein Vater” (not einen Vater!) or “Sie wird größer als ich” (not als mich, despite subject and object not the same person/thing). So I wrote Das ist nicht mein… But clearly it isn’t, it’s more an invisible implied noun?! So we learn… And I did get the next similar one right!
–Phil
“Meiner” is a possessive pronoun, as is “mein(e)s”. Possessive pronouns differ from the more familiar possessive determiners in that the masculine nominative gets an “er” on the end (e.g. deiner, unserer) and the neuter nominative and accusative get an “es” (or just an “s” if you pefer) (e.g. dein(e)s, seines).
Perfectly explained :)!!
The “logic” for warten auf+acc is actually a general trend. These fixed, somewhat abstract combos tend (tend!!!) to go with accusative for two way prepositions, while using Dative will sound “local”.
Check out my post on Two Way Prepositions for more. (I need to add it to the archive, shame on me!!!)
As for “das ist nicht meiner”. You’re absolutely right, both sides are nominative.
But “meiner” is a pronoun, NOT the same as the article “mein”. The behavior is really similar to adjectives without article. They get a marker for gender and case.
– meiner ( -er= masculine, nominative)
Hope that helps.
I’m not sure how one tells “fixed somewhat abstract combos” from everyday odd-to-the-English preposition choices, but yes, I should clearly read the article!
And yes, I was (wrongly) thinking of it as taking “mein” type endings i.e. none in the nominative. But cool, now I know – thanks!
Fall —
AufWenn ein Satz beantwortet die.Frage – Wo ??? + Dative
Wo ist es? Auf dem Tisch.
Wenn es beantwortet die Frage :
Worauf ?
Woran?
Wohin?
÷ Accusitiv
Worauf wartet er?
Auf den Bus.
Wohin liegt er den den Schlüssel?
Auf den Tisch.
Oh wow…. das ist SUPER!!! Ich habe das noch nie gehört oder gedacht, aber die Fragen anzugucken ist eine echt gute Eselsbrücke. Danke!!
But even here, it boils down to a question of movement (or abstraction) vs. location.
Worauf steht der Hund? Auf dem Tisch.
Woran sind wir gerade vorbeigefahren? An der Nationalbibliothek. (Or maybe: Woran tut sich die Katze gütlich? An der toten Maus.)
A “wohin” question would always be answered in the accusative, but that’s because “wohin” always implies motion. I.e., that’s specific to “hin” and does not transfer to “auf,” “an,” etc.