Nominative vs accusative: who does what to whom?
German cases become much easier when you stop seeing them as tables first. In a basic sentence, the nominative usually marks the subject—the person or thing doing the action. The accusative often marks the direct object—the person or thing directly affected by the action.
Nominative: the subject
The man is sleeping.
Die Frau arbeitet.
The woman is working.
Der Mann and die Frau are the subjects, so they are nominative.
Accusative: the direct object
The man sees the dog.
Der Mann does the seeing, so it is nominative. Den Hund receives the action directly, so it is accusative.
The masculine article change is the big beginner clue
In the accusative, masculine articles visibly change:
- der → den
- ein → einen
I buy a coffee.
Sie hat einen Bruder.
She has a brother.
With the definite article, feminine and neuter forms do not show the same visible change: die Frau and das Kind can be accusative without changing their article.
Useful questions: Wer? Wen? Was?
A practical German check is:
- Wer? — who is doing it? → nominative
- Wen? — whom is the action affecting? → accusative
- Was? — what is the action affecting? → accusative
Common verbs with an accusative object
Many everyday verbs often take a direct object, including haben (have), sehen (see), kaufen (buy), brauchen (need) and finden (find).
I need the key.
Wir kaufen das Brot.
We buy the bread.
How to practice in Anki
Use sentence pairs that force you to identify roles. For example: Der Hund sieht den Mann and Der Mann sieht den Hund. The nouns switch grammatical jobs, and the articles show you what changed.
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DeckLearn GermanWhich sentence is correct?
The man sees the dog.