So, here's the scenario. I was given a sentence "Warum glaubt er ________ nicht?" and had to properly insert "sein Bruder" in the blank. I put "Warum glaubt er seinen Bruder nicht?" but the answer was "Warum glaubt er seinem Bruder nicht?". I don't understand why "sein Bruder" would be used in the dative case instead of the accusative case. "sein Bruder" directly receives the action of "glaubt nicht". Could someone explain, much thanks in advance.
I wish I could help you, but being a native german I have basically no actual understanding of the grammar rules or how to explain them.
I really tried to come up with something, but I can't really phrase it well,k your teacher could probably help you a lot better here.
It's a pretty horrible language to learn, I guess.
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Anonymous2011-02-01 16:16
I don't have a teacher, I'm learning on my own, using other resources.
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Anonymous2011-02-01 17:37
Its easy... if you are german.
Simple rule: just ask for the object. The question-word for dative is "wem"
The question-word for accusative is "wen oder was?"
"wen oder was?" would just make no sense or to put it another way: I have no idea why the dative is used.
Read some books, watch some movies, speak some german and you'll do it visceral. Good luck^^
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Anonymous2011-02-01 19:22
Danke. I re-read part of my book and noticed I missed that glauben is a dative verb. Whatever it applies to is always in the dative. :)