Friday 28 February 2014

166. The Genitive Case (II)

166.  The Genitive Case (II)

We saw in the last post the introduction to the Genitive Case which is used in German to show 'ownership'. This is indicated in English by  's,  s'  and  'of '. We saw how the definite article ('the') changed as well  - Masculine and Neuter words have  'des'  and Feminine plus Plurals have 'der'. Masculine and Neuter nouns also are written adding either an 's' or 'es' (shorter words).

Below is a table with the definite article for each of the cases with the respective genders and some examples of sentences using the Genitive.

                   Masc           Fem         Neut         Plural

Nom            der               die            das            die           (Subject)
Acc             den               die            das            die           (Object)
Gen             des               der           des            der          (Possession)

Beispiele


*  the pupil's teacher .....  der Lehrer des Schülers (m)  /  der Schülerin (f) ist nett.
*  the babies' parents  ....  the parents of the babies ... die Eltern der Babys sind alt.
*  the name of the book .... der Name des Buchs ist unbekannt.  (Note Eng. here - 'of' is used more
    often than the 's when objects are being spoken of).

Further Examples  
Der Preis der Bluse ist nicht teuer.
Ich mag die Farbe des Vogels.
Ich weiß nicht die Nummer des Hauses.
Der Schnabel des Beuteltiers ist ganz flach.
Die Länge der Gebäude ist gar nicht groß.

Try these ones for yourself ... use the correct form of the definite articles and put '(e)s' on nouns requiring it.

1    ....... Marke  d.... Bier.....  ist weltbekannt.
2    D.....  Telefonnummer  d.....  neuen Schüler....  ist mir unbekannt.
3    D.....  Dach  d.... Kirche ist sehr hoch.
4   Wir mögen d......  Sitze  d......  Auto....  .
5   D.....  Wärme  d..... Wolldecke gefällt mir gut.
6   D..... Seiten d..... Buch..... sind alle zerrissen.
Statue on Neckar Bridge




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