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Usages of an
Er setzt sich an einen kleinen Tisch.
He sits down at a little table.
an (at) is a preposition that can work with both dative and accusative case.
Accusative is the case of movement towards a direction.
an einen kleinen Tisch
is accusative
He is moving into a sitting position at the table.
Don't worry at this stage too much about the forms. We will tackle that later, but try to grasp the idea of when to use the accusative.
Er sitzt an einem kleinen Tisch.
He sits at a little table.
Now he finished the process of sitting down, he is situated at the table. We are no longer talking about the direction of a movement but about the location, where the man is at.
an einem kleinen Tisch
is Dative
When we want to describe a location, we use prepositions followed by a dative.
in einem Café
an einem Tisch
Er setzt sich an einen kleinen Tisch in der Ecke.
He sits down at a little table in the corner.
He is sitting down. (direction >accusative)
The table is standing in the corner (location>dative)
It would be a different case if we said:
He sits down in the corner.
In this case we would have a movement into the corner. >Accusative
Er setzt sich in die Ecke.
Sieh mal an!
My my!/Look at that!/Didn't see that coming./Hear hear!
Er denkt immer wieder an die schöne Frau.
He thinks again and again about the beautiful woman.
Er muß immerzu an die schöne Frau denken.
He can't help thinking all the time about the beautiful woman.
Ob sie auch an ihn denkt?
Does she also think about him? He wonders whether ...
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“How do German cases work?”
German has four grammatical cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), dative (indirect object), and genitive (possession). The case determines the form of articles and adjectives. For example, "the dog" is "der Hund" as a subject but "den Hund" as a direct object.
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