#dativ

Verbs are not that difficult to grasp. They work just like English. You have the pronoun and then you have the verb. They usually conjugate like...

ich -e (I)

du -est (you informal)

er/sie/es -t/et (he/she/it)

wir -en (we)

ihr -et (you plural)

sie/Sie -en (they/you formal)

... but there are ones that don't work the same. These are irregular.

e.g. sein - to be conjugates like this:

bin

bist

ist

sind

seid

sind

... which doesn't follow that rule at all. And there are some words that conjugate sort of normally with small changes. The change is an umlaut. An umlaut is a letter with two dots on the top of it which makes it be pronounced differently. An a with an umlaut sounds like ae, an o with an umlaut sounds like oe, a u with an umlaut sounds like you but without the y. So if I want to put an umlaut somewhere in a word it will just have an e after the letter. Umlauts can only be put on vowels. If you struggle with the pronunciation then you can always watch a youtube video.

e.g. fahren - to drive

fahre

faehrst

faehrt

fahren

fahrt

fahren

These verbs only differ on the you singular and third person singular. Present verbs in German are always the same. If you say I eat Fish it is Ich esse Fisch. If you say I am eating fish it is Ich esse Fisch. It never changes.

The dative is quite simple. It is what is done to you or to anyone else. 

e.g. I am giving it to you / Ich gebe es zu dir / Ich gebe dir es

e.g. You gave it to me / Du gabst es zu mir / Du gabst mir es

The dative pronouns are:

mir

dir

ihm/ihr/ihm

uns

euch

ihnen

The accusative pronouns are:

mich

dich

ihn/sie/es

uns

euch

sie

The accusative case is what you may be giving to a person, eating, holding. It is called the direct object whereas the dative case is called the indirect object.

e.g I have an apple / Ich habe einen Apfel

Ich gebe den Apfel zu dir

Du isst den Apfel

The article changes for these

The dative and accusative articles are

       m.       n.        f.        pl.

acc. den     das     die     die

       einen  ein      eine   (keine)

dat. dem    dem    der    den

       einem einem einer (keinen)

Past perfect in German is rather simple. Stick a ge- in front of the verb's infinitive and you have the verb. Chuck it to the end of the sentence and use either haben or sein in the beginning of the sentence. In past perfect, you use bin if you were going from one place to the other and habe for anything else.

e.g. Ich bin nach Deutschland gefahren - I drove to Germany

Ich habe einen Fussballspiel gesehen - I saw a football match

Future tense is relatively easy too. You use the word will in German (werden) and chuck the infinitive of the verb you want to use at the end.

e.g Ich werde nach Deutschland fahren

Ich werde einen Fussballspiel sehen

If you want conjugations of these verbs I would suggest going on conjugator reverso and searching up the verbs in the German section. For present tense go to Indikativ, Praesens and for past perfect go to Partizip, Perfekt.

Separable verbs are an annoyance. Ich sehe einen Vogel an - I am looking at a bird. The word for to look at is ansehen. It splits up into sehen and an. It is much easier in the past perfect and the future tense because it stays in the infinitive at the end of the sentence and requires no ge-. The an isn't separate and it makes life so much easier. (I would suggest that you try to find a better explanation of them)

If there are two verbs in a sentence you send the second one to the end in the infinitive.

e.g. Ich konnte Koch sein - I could be a cook

Reflexive verbs are ok. You get the verb and use the accusative pronouns directly after it.

e.g. Ich dusche mich - I shower myself / I have a shower/ I take a shower / I shower

The genetive case I wont talk about in this because I don't understand how to use it. It is possesion. The genetive pronouns are:

mein

dein

sein/ihr/sein

unser

euer

ihr/ Ihr

The only bit that confuses me is what to do when you aren't using pronouns. If you wanted to say Charlie's pencil case how would you say it. There aren'r possesive apostophies in German so I don't know how to do it. I know how to say That belongs to Charlie which is Das gehoert Charlie but how would you say it the other way round?