Can someone explain the difference between the four cases used in the German language?

Hi!


I know that there are four different cases used in the German language, nominative, accusative, dative, and genitiv, but I don't understand the difference between them. Like when to use one vs. the other. So basically what I'm asking is, can someone please explain to me when each of the different cases are used and give me a basic understanding of what each one is?





Please and Thank you, your time is much appreciated. Can someone explain the difference between the four cases used in the German language?
Every complete sentence has to have at least 2 parts, a noun which is the creature or thing that performs the action (nominative) and a conjugated verb that describes the action.


';A bird sings'; - ';Ein Vogel singt';





Now sometimes the sentence would be incomplete like in ';The man gives'; *Der Mann gibt.'; Immediately you ask yourself: What does he give? (Wen oder was gibt er?= accusative or direct object) To whom does he give it? (Wem gibt er es? = dative or indirect object)


You need objects of the action described by the verb, and that's where the other cases come in. It becomes clearer if you substitute the nouns by their pronouns.


';Er gibt den Hund dem M盲dchen'; He gives the dog to the girl.


';Er gibt ihn ihr'; He gives it (him) to her.





English does not make a case difference in the objective form of the pronoun (me, him, her) and ';you'; and ';it'; both have no separate objective forms.





Most of the time ';To him/ her/ it'; corresponds to a dative case in German, but you have to be careful because verbs are differently used in either language.


';I help her (the woman)'; - (direct object)


';Ich helfe ihr (der Frau = dative) - (indirect object)





The genitive case is the easiest one, it denotes possession or belonging to, the same as in English. ';the king's horses'; ';die Pferde des K枚nigs';. Like in English with ';of';, in spoken German it is increasingly substituted by ';von'; + dative ';die Pferde vom K枚nig';Can someone explain the difference between the four cases used in the German language?
basically, nominative is the subject of the sentence


Accusative is the direct object.





In the sentence ';john kicked the ball'; John would be nominative and ball would be accusative.





Dative is the indirect object of the sentence. in ';John kicked sam the ball'; sam is the indirect object and would be dative case if english still had one.





Genitive is possesive.
Nominative: ';Subject'; Case





';Der Mann ist mein Vater.'; (The man is my father.)





Accusative: ';Direct Object'; Case





';Ich kenne den Mann.'; (I know the man.)





Dative Case: ';Indirect Object'; Case





';Ich schicke dem Mann den Brief.'; (I send the man the letter.)





Genetive Case: ';Possessive'; Case





';Das Haus des Mannes ist sch枚n.'; (The man's house is pretty.)





Note: Certain pronouns make the following noun in the accusative, dative or even genetive cases. For instance:





';Das ist f眉r den Mann.'; (That is for the man.)


';Das Auto is von dem Mann.'; (That is the man's car.)





Note: Certain verbs also require the following noun to be in the dative case. For instance:





';Ich glaube dem Mann.'; (I believe [in] the man.)





Furthermore, some verb constructions call for certain cases. For instance:





';Ich denke immer an dich.'; (I'm always thinking about you.)