108. Nominative & Accusative Cases (Subjects & Objects) & Clothing

108.  Nominative & Accusative Cases (Subjects & Objects) & Clothing 

Different from English, German uses a case system much more extensively. So far we have only looked at nouns in German in what we know as the subjective case. Today we need to move on to nouns in the objective case. First, though, I had better explain this concept in English by way of giving you some examples. This is best illustrated by showing pronouns as subjects and objects.

e.g.  That is Petra.  She loves music  and  we like her.  In this sentence she is the subject providing the action of loving music but in the next section, we is the subject, because we are doing the liking and the object here is her. The action of liking happens to the object .....

So,  we can say        the subject of the sentence provides the action and ...
                                 the object of the sentence has the action happen to it.

Some more examples  ....  
1  Tom?  He (S) visits us (O) every week so we (S) see him (O) quite often.
2  Tina and I, we (S) often go to our friends' place but they (S) invite us (O) first.
3  I saw Anja and Heinz recently. I (S) like them (O) but they (S) don't like me (O).

English pronouns in the subjective case are:   I,   you,  he,   she,  it,  we,  you,  they
In the objective case they are:                           me, you,  him, her,  it,  us,   you,  them

For nouns in German, we have already seen the words for the with  die,  der  &  das
These are all subjective case where they provide the action in the sentence.

If they are used as objects, der words change to den but die & das words stay the same.

e.g.    Der Pullover (S) kostet fünfzig Euro.  Ja, ich nehme den Pullover (O).
          Die Bluse (S) ist nicht teuer. Ich nehme die Bluse (O) in Weiß bitte.
          Das Hemd (S) (shirt) ist sehr modisch. Ich mag (like) das Hemd (O).

See if you can guess the meanings of the following words related to clothing.
Possible answers are given below. Answers next time!

die:    Bluse,     Hose,    Kappe,    Krawatte,    Socke,   Tasche,  Brille,   Jacke
         [ tie,   pants,   cap,   jacket,   glasses,  blouse,   bag,   sock]

der:    Hut,    Pullover,   Schal,   Mantel,   Schuh,   Anzug,   Rock,   Stiefel,  Gürtel]
         [ boot,   coat,   shoe,   skirt,  belt,  hat,   scarf / shawl,   jumper / pullover,  suit ]

das:   Hemd,  Kleid,   Sakko,   T-Shirt
         [ sports coat,  shirt,  dress,  T-shirt]

Deutsches Eck on confluence of Rhein and Mosel