German grammar

Prepositions in German – Accusative Case (Der Akkusativ)

Learn German – Accusative Case

The German accusative case is used when the noun or pronoun is the direct object of the sentence – that is, the person or thing affected by the action or verb.

Endings in the Accusative Case

Except for the masculine gender, accusative endings are the same as the nominative case.

Article	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Definite	den	die	das	die
Indefinite	einen	eine	ein	–
Negative	keinen	keine	kein	keine
Possessive	meinen	meine	mein	meine

Personal Pronouns in the Accusative Case

Most personal pronouns change in the accusative case as follows:

Singular Pronoun	Definition	Plural Pronoun	Definition
mich	me	uns	us
dich	you (informal)	euch	you (informal plural)
ihn / sie / es	him / her / it	sie	they
Sie	you (formal)	Sie	you (formal plural)

Accusative Case After Certain Verbs

Most transitive verbs (verbs that take a direct object) require the accusative case. For example:

Ich sehe den Hund. – I see the dog.
Er hat einen Ball. – He has a ball.

Accusative Case After Certain Prepositions

The following prepositions always take the accusative case, regardless of the sentence structure:

Preposition	Definition
bis	until
durch	through
für	for
gegen	against
ohne	without
um	around / at

Interrogatives in the Accusative Case – Der Akkusativ

In the accusative, the interrogative 'wer' becomes 'wen'.

'Welcher' changes based on the noun it refers to:

Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Accusative	welchen	welche	welches	welche

Examples

Ich kaufe einen Gürtel für meinen Vater. – I’m buying a belt for my father.
Er trinkt ein Bier. – He’s drinking a beer.
Ich habe keinen Hunger. – I’m not hungry.
Wir sind gegen die Idee. – We are against the idea.

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