German grammar

Accusative Case

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

Endings in the Accusative Case

Except for the masculine gender, accusative endings are the same as those in 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

Most personal pronouns change form in the accusative case:

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 verbs that take a direct object will use the accusative. These are known as transitive verbs. Example:

Ich sehe den Hund. – I see the dog.

Accusative Case After Certain Prepositions

The following prepositions always take the accusative case:

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

Interrogatives in the Accusative Case

In the accusative, the question word wer becomes wen. The word welcher (which) changes based on gender and number:

Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Accusative	welchen	welche	welches	welche

Examples

Here are some example sentences using the accusative case:

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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