Chinese (Mandarin)

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic (Modern Standard)

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Dari

Farsi

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

### The Dative of Disadvantage

In English, if you accidentally drop a bowl, you usually say, "I dropped the bowl," making yourself the active subject. German prefers to frame accidents and involuntary mishaps as things that happen *to* you. 

To express that you are the unfortunate victim of an accident, German uses the **dative of disadvantage** (*Dativus incommodi*). The object that fell or broke becomes the subject of the sentence, and the person affected takes the dative case (e.g., *mir*, *dir*, *ihm*).

For example, with the verb *herunterfallen* (to fall down), instead of saying "I dropped the bowl," a German speaker says "The bowl fell down on me."

{{item:883880}}

{{item:883882}}

### Spills and Fails

This structure is highly common when talking about clumsiness or things going wrong. By using the dative, you emphasize that it was an accident—you didn't deliberately knock over the cream, it tipped over *on you*!

{{item:883885}}

{{item:883888}}

### Baking Disasters

You can add this "woe is me" dative to almost any verb describing a mishap, such as burning (*verbrennen*), melting (*zerlaufen*), or ruining (*ruinieren*). It translates loosely to "on me" or "for me" in English (e.g., "The cake burned on me").

{{item:883894}}

{{item:883899}}

Even if an outside force—like a broken kitchen appliance or the weather—caused the disaster, you can still insert a dative pronoun to show who suffers the consequences of the ruined bake.

{{item:883890}}

Dative of disadvantage (mir ist ...)

adjective

adverb

auxiliary verb

conjunction

determiner

interjection

noun

numeral

particle

preposition

pronoun

sentence

verb

Definite articles and gender (der, die, das)

Indefinite articles (ein, eine)

Regular verbs and statement word order (ich -e, er -t)

The second person (du -st, Sie -en)

Yes/No questions

The verb 'to have' (habe, hast, hat)

Plural pronouns and regular verbs (wir, ihr, sie)

Plural 'to be' and 'to have' (sind, haben)

Plural nouns and the plural article (die)

Sentence negation (nicht)

Noun negation (kein, keine)

Question words (wer, was, wo, wie)

Numbers 0 to 12 (null, eins, zwei)

The accusative case (den, die, das)

Indefinite accusative articles (einen, keinen)

Direct object pronouns (mich, dich, ihn)

There is / there are (es gibt)

Vowel changes: e to i/ie (er spricht, sie liest)

Vowel changes: a to ä (er fährt)

Weather and conditions (es regnet)

First- and second-person possessives in the nominative (mein, dein, Ihr)

First- and second-person possessives in the accusative (meinen, deinen, Ihren)

Third-person and plural possessives (sein, ihr, unser, euer)

Possession with names (Annas Auto)

Demonstrative pronouns (dieser, diese, dieses)

Expressing preference (gern, lieber)

Asking about direction and origin (woher, wohin)

Expressing ability (können)

Polite requests (möchten)

Expressing intention (wollen)

Modal verbs of obligation and permission (müssen, dürfen)

Separable prefix verbs

Adverbs of frequency (immer, oft, manchmal, nie)

The Dative case and definite articles (dem, der, den)

Dative indefinite and negative articles (einem, einer, keinem)

Dative personal pronouns (mir, dir, ihm, ihr...)

Dative verbs (helfen, danken, gefallen, schmecken)

Dative prepositions (aus, bei, mit, nach...)

Accusative prepositions (für, ohne, gegen)

Two-way prepositions for location (in, an, auf...)

Informal singular imperative (mach, komm)

Plural and formal imperative (macht, machen Sie)

Coordinating conjunctions (und, oder, aber, denn)

Simple past of sein and haben (war, hatte)

The perfect tense: regular verbs (gemacht, gespielt)

Past tense: irregular verbs (ge-...-en)

The perfect tense: mixed verbs (gebracht, gekannt)

The perfect tense with sein (ist gegangen)

The perfect tense: separable verbs (eingekauft)

The perfect tense: inseparable and -ieren verbs (besucht, studiert)

Informal singular commands (mach, lern)

Numbers 13 to 20 (dreizehn to zwanzig)

Counting by tens to 100 (dreißig, vierzig)

Telling time (Uhr, halb, Viertel, vor, nach)

Numbers 21 to 99 (einundzwanzig, zweiunddreißig)

Greetings and farewells

Thank you, sorry and good wishes

Everyday replies

Numbers 100 to 1,000,000 (hundert, tausend...)

Becoming and getting (werden)

The impersonal pronoun (man)

Indefinite pronouns (jemand, niemand...)

Time sequence prepositions (vor, nach, bei)

Time span prepositions (von... bis, seit, für)

Adverbs of sequence (zuerst, dann, danach)

Two-way prepositions for direction (in, auf, an...)

Directional adverbs (hin, her)

Placement verbs (setzen, stellen, legen)

Months of the year (Januar, Februar)

The four seasons (Frühling, Sommer)

Time prepositions and indefinite pronouns (an, in, um)

Ordinal numbers 1st to 19th (am ersten)

Ordinals 20th and beyond (-ste, -sten)

Placement vs. location verbs (stellen vs. stehen)

Accusative reflexive pronouns (mich, dich, sich)

Accusative reflexive verbs (sich freuen)

Dative reflexive pronouns (mir, dir, sich)

Dative reflexive verbs (sich etwas merken)

Ordinal numbers 11th to 19th (-te)

Temporal prepositions (an, in, um)

Double objects with nouns

Double objects with pronouns

The modal verb for advice (sollen)

Simple past of modal verbs (musste, wollte...)

Simple past of common irregulars (wurde, wusste, es gab)

Adverbial connectors of consequence (deshalb, darum...)

Subordinate clauses for statements (dass)

Question	Answer
to fall down	herunterfallen
Unfortunately, I dropped the bowl.	Mir ist die Schüssel leider heruntergefallen.
the baking tray	das Backblech
Yesterday, he dropped the hot baking tray.	Gestern ist ihm das heiße Backblech heruntergefallen.
the cream	die Sahne
to tip over	umkippen
No, I knocked over all the cream!	Nein, mir ist die ganze Sahne umgekippt!
Although I was careful, I knocked over the bowl.	Obwohl ich vorsichtig war, ist mir die Schüssel umgekippt.
the mixer	der Mixer
The mixer is broken, and my dough completely failed.	Der Mixer ist kaputt und der Teig ist mir völlig misslungen.
to ruin	ruinieren
The broken mixer ruined the dough for me.	Der kaputte Mixer hat mir den Teig ruiniert.
the icing	die Glasur
The heat ruined the icing for me.	Die Hitze hat mir die Glasur ruiniert.
to melt (and run, spread)	zerlaufen
My icing melted on me, although the cake was cold.	Die Glasur ist mir zerlaufen, obwohl der Kuchen kalt war.
the filling	die Füllung
If only my filling hadn't melted!	Wäre mir doch die Füllung nicht zerlaufen!
to burn (up, scorch)	verbrennen
Unfortunately, my cake burned during baking.	Beim Backen ist mir der Kuchen leider verbrannt.
I was careless, and the cake burned on me.	Ich war unvorsichtig, und der Kuchen ist mir verbrannt.
I dropped the mixer and it ruined the baking tray!	Mir ist der Mixer heruntergefallen und hat das Backblech ruiniert!
The cream tipped over on me, and the filling melted on me.	Mir ist die Sahne umgekippt und die Füllung ist mir zerlaufen.