The German verbs that take the dative

The default in German is that a verb's object goes in the accusative: ich sehe dich, ich frage ihn, ich lade sie ein. A small group breaks that rule and takes the dative instead, so the object is mir, dir, ihm rather than mich, dich, ihn. There is no rule you can apply — you learn which verbs they are, and the list is short enough that this is genuinely a small job.

The six to learn first

Later you will meet more of them, and they follow the same pattern: folgen, vertrauen, gratulieren, schmecken, fehlen, begegnen, widersprechen and schulden. If a verb is on the dative list, it is on it for every sentence you will ever write with it.

gefallen and gehören turn the English round

These two are worth a moment because the sentence is built back to front compared with English. In “die Wohnung gefällt mir”, the flat is the subject and I am the dative object — literally the flat is pleasing to me. So the thing you like is doing the verb, not receiving it.

• Die Wohnung gefällt mir.

  I like the flat.

  subject = die Wohnung. Say “ich gefalle die Wohnung” and you have said the flat likes you

• Der Schrank gehört mir.

  The cupboard is mine.

  subject = der Schrank; the owner is dative

• Die Küche gehört den Vormietern.

  The kitchen belongs to the previous tenants.

  dative plural — den Vormietern, with the -n

mir or mich

The quickest way to fix these is to drill them in pairs against a verb that takes the accusative, because the two sentences look identical until you reach the pronoun.

• Ich danke dir. / Ich lade dich ein.

  I thank you. / I'm inviting you.

  danken is dative, einladen is accusative

• Er hilft mir. / Er fragt mich.

  He's helping me. / He's asking me.

  helfen dative, fragen accusative

• Das passt mir. / Das interessiert mich.

  That suits me. / That interests me.

  same English shape, different German case

When a verb takes both

Verbs of giving and telling — geben, schenken, zeigen, erklären, schicken — take two objects at once: the person in the dative and the thing in the accusative. The person receives, the thing is handed over.

• Kai wollte ihm seine Adresse geben.

  Kai wanted to give him his address.

  ihm = recipient (dative), seine Adresse = thing (accusative)

• Ich gebe dem Kind das Buch.

  I'm giving the child the book.

  two nouns: dative first, then accusative

• Ich gebe es dem Kind.

  I'm giving it to the child.

  a pronoun jumps in front of a noun, whichever case it is

So the order rule has two parts. With two nouns, the dative comes first. As soon as one of them is a pronoun, the pronoun goes first — and if both are pronouns, the accusative leads: “Ich gebe es ihm.”

Common mistakes

• ✗Kannst du mich helfen?

  ✓Kannst du mir helfen?

  helfen takes the dative. This is the single most common dative-verb error, and it is worth over-learning as a fixed phrase.

• ✗Die Wohnung gefällt mich.

  ✓Die Wohnung gefällt mir.

  gefallen is dative, and the flat is the subject. The person doing the liking is the object.

• ✗Ich gefalle die Wohnung.

  ✓Die Wohnung gefällt mir.

  This reverses the sentence and says the flat likes you. gefallen never works the way English “like” does.

• ✗Ich danke dich für alles.

  ✓Ich danke dir für alles.

  danken is dative, even though the English “I thank you” looks exactly like “I invite you”, where German uses the accusative.

• ✗Ich gebe das Buch ihm.

  ✓Ich gebe ihm das Buch.

  A pronoun goes in front of a noun object. Only two nouns follow the dative-then-accusative order.

• ✗Ich antworte die Frage.

  ✓Ich antworte dir. / Ich antworte auf die Frage.

  antworten takes a dative person. For the thing being answered it needs auf + accusative — it never takes a bare accusative.

A last note on why this is worth the effort at B1. Dative verbs cluster in exactly the situations you practise most at this level — asking for help, thanking someone, saying whether a flat or a time suits you, working out who owns what. Six verbs, and they cover most of a conversation with a landlord, a neighbour or a doctor. If you also need the dative after prepositions, that is a separate list and has its own guide.