Adjective Endings II

Accusative/Dative

The following chart shows the adjective endings for the accusative and dative cases with the definite articles (der, dem, der) and the indefinite articles (einen, einem, einer, keinen). The nominative case endings were previously outlined in Part I. The adjective endings for the genitive case follow the same pattern as the dative.

Accusative Case (Direct Object)
Masculine den	Feminine die	Neuter das	Plural die
den neuen Wagen the new car	die schöne Stadt the beautiful city	das alte Auto the old car	die neuen Bücher the new books
Masculine einen	Feminine eine	Neuter ein	Plural keine
einen neuen Wagen a new car	eine schöne Stadt a beautiful city	ein altes Auto an old car	keine neuen Bücher no new books

Dative Case (Indirect Object)
Masculine dem	Feminine der	Neuter dem	Plural den
dem netten Mann (to) the nice man	der schönen Frau (to) the beautiful woman	dem netten Mädchen (to) the nice girl	den anderen Leuten* (to) the other people
Masculine einem	Feminine einer	Neuter einem	Plural keinen
einem netten Mann (to) a nice man	einer schönen Frau (to) a beautiful woman	einem netten Mädchen (to) a nice girl	keinen anderen Leuten* (to) no other people
*Plural nouns in the dative add an -n or -en ending if the plural form does not already end in -(e)n. NOTE: The adjective endings in the Genitive Case are the same as in the DATIVE - all -en!

As we saw earlier in Part I (Nominative), an adjective that precedes a noun must have an ending--at least an -e. Also notice that the endings shown here in the ACCUSATIVE (direct object) case are identical to those in the NOMINATIVE (subject) case--with the sole exception of the masculine gender (der/den). The masculine gender is the only one that looks any different when the case changes from nominative (der) to accusative (den).

In the sentence "Der blaue Wagen ist neu," the subject is der Wagen and der Wagen is nominative. But if we say "Ich kaufe den blauen Wagen." ("I'm buying the blue car."), then "der Wagen" changes to "den Wagen" as the accusative object. The adjective ending rule here is: in the accusative case with the definite article (the/den, die, das) the adjective ending is always -en for the masculine (den) form. But it remains -e for die or das. So we would get "...den blauen Wagen..." (...the blue car...), but "...die blaue Tür.." (the blue door), or "...das blaue Buch..." (the blue book).

When the adjective is used with an ein-word (einen, dein, keine, etc.), the accusative adjective ending must reflect the gender and case of the noun that follows. The adjective endings -en, -e, and -es correspond to the articles den, die, and das respectively (masc., fem., and neuter). Once you notice the parallel and the agreement of the letters n, e, s with den, die, das, it makes the process a little clearer.

Many German learners find the DATIVE (indirect object) case to be intimidating, but when it comes to adjective endings in the dative, it couldn't be more simple. The ending is ALWAYS -en! That's it! And this simple rule applies to adjectives used with either the definite or indefinte articles (and ein-words).

As we mentioned in Part I, this is another illustration of why it is important to learn the gender of nouns in German. If you don't know that Wagen is masculine (der), then you won't be able to say (or write) "Er hat einen neuen Wagen." ("He has a new car.")