Adam Learns German

Prepositions

Prepositions are words that usually occur before nouns in the akkusativ or dativ case and they help determine things like time (on, since, before, at, until, for) and placement (on, above, under, over).

To determine if it is a dativ or akkusativ object you must go through 4 steps:

1. is the preposition gegen, durch or für? If so the object is akkusativ.

2. is the preposition anvorbei, mit or zu? If so the object is dativ.

3. does the preposition relate to movement? If so the object is akkustativ

4. does the preposition relate to a static state? If so the object is dativ

Remember, the dativ and akkusativ objects effect the articles. For example, der, die, das:

	Nominative	Akkusative	Dativ
Masculine	der	den	dem
Feminine	die	die	der
Neutral	das	das	dem
Plural	die	die	den

Here is a list of common prepositions.

preposition	translation	akk use	dativ use
an	at, on, to	Der Mann legt das buch an die Tisch	Das buch legt an der Tische
auf	at, to, on, upon	Der Mann lauft auf der Strasse
aus	from, out of
bei	at, near
bis	until
durch	through, by		---
für	for		---
gegen	against, into, around, about		---
hinter	behind
in	in, into
mit	with, by	---
nach	after, to
neben	beside, near, next to
ohne	without
über	about, above, across, over
um	around, at
unter	under, among
von	by, from
vor	in front of, before
zu	at, to	---
zwischen	between

In addition to this, often the definite article is collapsed into the preposition in the following way:

preposition	akk use	dativ use
an	+ das = ans	+ dem = am
auf	+ das = aufs
bei		+ dem = beim
für	+ das = fürs
in	+ das = ins	+ dem = im
um	+ das = ums
von		+ dem = vom
zu		+ dem = zum + der = zur