Genitive Case – LEARN TO SPEAK GERMAN

The genitive case has two primary functions: (1) to link nouns to show possession and (2) to identify the object of genitive prepositions. Let’s look at the genitive case of some example nouns with the definite article (der, die, das), the indefinite article (ein, eine), and kein.

masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
des Mannes	der Frau	des Kindes	der Lampen
eines Mannes	einer Frau	eines Kindes	N/A
keines Mannes	keiner Frau	keines Kindes	keiner Lampen

Notice that masculine and neuter nouns require the addition of the ending -(e)s. You can also see that the plural genitive does not have an indefinite form.

Names show possession by adding -s to them. For example:

Martins Familie Martin’s family
Deutschlands Grenzen Germany’s borders

Pronouns do not have a genitive declension. Instead, they form possessive adjectives.

possessive

pronoun	adjective	neuter
ich	mein	my
du	dein	your (singular, informal)
er	sein	his
sie s.	ihr	her
es	sein	its
wir	unser	our
ihr	euer	your(plural, informal)
sie pl.	ihr	their
Sie	Ihr	your(formal)
wer	wessen	whose

The possessive adjective euer requires a minor spelling change when an ending is added, for example:
eure, eurer, euren, eurem, and eures.

Possession

English has two ways of showing possession. One way is to add an apostrophe and an s to a noun:
the boy’s wagon, women’s rights, and so on. Another way is to use the preposition of: the color of her hair, the speed of light, and so on.
German uses the genitive case to indicate a possessive. The genitive can be translated into English as either apostrophe + s or of, depending on what sounds appropriate. For example:

der Vater der Braut the bride’s father, or the father of the bride

die Gesundheit des Kindes the child’s health, or the health of the child

It is also possible to form a possessive in German with the dative preposition von. This is similar to using the preposition of to form the possessive in English. The use of von is more common in the everyday spoken language, and the genitive declension tends to be used in the written language.
Compare the following phrases:

written language                          everyday spoken language
die Kinder meiner Schwester          die Kinder von meiner Schwester     my sister’s children
viele der Studenten                           viele von den Studenten                     many of the students

The preposition von is required in both writing and speech if (1) a noun stands alone without adefinite or indefinite article or any other declined word; (2) the noun follows etwas, nichts, or viel; or (3) a pronoun is used in place of a noun. For example:

noun with an article	der Geruch der frischen Luft	the smell of the fresh
(use genitive)		air
noun standing alone	der Geruch von Essig	the smell of vinegar
etwas, nichts, viel (use *von*)	etwas von dem Bier	some of the beer
	nichts von dem Schatz	nothing of the treasure
	viel von der Arbeit	much of the work
pronouns	jeder von euch	each of you
	eine Bekannte von ihm	an acquaintance of his

Genitive prepositions

There are four primary genitive prepositions:

                                      statt (anstatt)              instead of
                                      trotz                              in spite of, despite
                                      während during
                                      wegen                           because of, on account of

The objects of these four prepositions will be in the genitive case. For example:

Statt meines Bruders kam meine                 Instead of my brother, my sister came for a visit.
Schwester zu Besuch.
Trotz des Gewitters gingen die In spite of the storm, the hikers continued on.
Wanderer weiter.
Während des Sommers machten                 During the summer, we took many excursions.
wir viele Ausflüge.
Wegen ihrer Krankheit hat die                     Because of her illness, the pupil missed a lot.
Schülerin viel versäumt.

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