German Prepositions Overview
You鈥檝e learned how to say a lot in German so far, but 鈥�
Imagine you couldn鈥檛 talk about how, when, where, or why something is done.
Scenario: you鈥檙e traveling. But you can鈥檛 say you鈥檙e traveling to New York City on Tuesday with your best friend on account of your birthday.
Those were prepositional phrases (4 of them combined)! They add so much richness to what we say and write 鈥� talking about hows, whens, wheres, and whys is pretty important stuff.
Prepositions themselves are words such as for, to, over, under, through, by, and since. But they exist in phrases that have an object noun (for you, to Boston, over the bridge).
Are you ready to start describing the when/where/why/how details of what you鈥檙e doing? Then let鈥檚 learn the 4 types of German prepositions: accusative, dative, genitive, and two-way!
Finally understand hard-to-grasp German grammar concepts.
Accusative Prepositions
There are 5 prepositions (through, for, against, without, around) that, in German, have to be in the accusative case.
Learning the German prepositions themselves isn鈥檛 hard at all, you can probably do that right now just reading this intro:
durch (through)
f眉r (for)
gegen (against)
ohne (without)
um (around)
But there are 2 tricky parts:
- You have to be able to plug these prepositions into the German accusative case.
- You CAN鈥橳 directly translate from English prepositions 鈥� context changes everything!
Maybe you already feel solid in how to use the German case system (if not, don鈥檛 worry, I鈥檝e got your back 鈥� read on!)
But I鈥檓 going to guess you are not already well-versed in the correct contexts in which to use a given accusative preposition (or any of the rest of them!). Don鈥檛 worry, we鈥檒l talk about that, too!
Dative Prepositions
In English, prepositions don鈥檛 have a blessed thing to do with 鈥渃ase鈥� 鈥� but in German, everything involving nouns (<鈥� including those in prepositional phrases) is all about the case system!
To truly be conversational in German, you have to know your dative prepositions from your accusative ones. And, yep, that means you need to be able to put those prepositional phrases into the correct case.
There are 9 German prepositions that always take the dative. That means that the noun following the prepositionin the prepositional phrase has to be properly 鈥榝lagged鈥� or signaled as being in the dative case (and not in one of the other 3 cases).
Want to learn those 9 dative prepositions? Want to learn when and how to actually use them?
Yikes. Are you a little scared to know what this is about? Don鈥檛 worry, it鈥檚 not that bad.
Two-Way prepositions are a special group of prepositions that are sometimes accusative and sometimes dative.
What makes for the difference? Well, as is often the case, German makes some distinctions here that we don鈥檛 make in English.
In German, it鈥檚 important to indicate whether a noun is changing location (<鈥� two-way preposition in the accusative case) or has a static location (<鈥� two-way preposition in the dative).
The list of these two-way prepositions isn鈥檛 painfully long and it鈥檚 very logical (<鈥� every preposition you can think of that can indicate position such as above, under, behind, on, in, etc.)
Not nailing the accusative vs. dative on a two-way preposition makes a German鈥檚 ears bleed. DON鈥橳 BE THAT PERSON. You can learn this. It鈥檚 not that hard. Ready, set, go!
Save the trickiest bit for last! German genitive prepositions 鈥� oh boy.
There are up to 12 common-ish genitive prepositions that are valuable to learn no matter if you鈥檙e a big-wig (<鈥� who might use many dozens more genitive prepositions) or just a Joe Schmoe.
BUT 鈥� here鈥檚 the thing 鈥� the 鈥済enitive鈥� prepositions aren鈥檛 necessarily paired with the genitive case anymore!
You鈥檒l likely see them in their correct genitive-case form in books, on TV, or in paperwork you need to fill out at the German DMW (<鈥� ooh, fun!).
But in everyday, spoken German, 鈥榞enitive鈥� prepositions are used almost exclusively with the dative case (<鈥� sooo鈥� we should just consider them dative prepositions).
The whats, whens, and hows of 鈥榞enitive鈥� (<鈥� sometimes dative) prepositions are all questions that can be answered!
Do you want to be a German-learner who actually has this figured out? 馃榾
