In the German language there are four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. In this lesson we'll go deeper into the dative case.

The dative case is used for the indirect object in a sentence. The indirect object is often the receiver of something in the sentence. For example in the sentence Thomas gives chocolate to the woman, the subject is Thomas, the direct object is chocolate, and the indirect object is the woman.

Below you can see how the dative case is used for the different genders and the plural.

	Definite	Indefinite
Masculine	Sarah gibt dem Mann ein Geschenk. Sara gives the man a gift.	Sarah gibt einem Mann ein Geschenk. Sara gives a man a gift.
Feminine	Thomas gibt der Frau Schokolade. Thomas gives the woman chocolate.	Thomas gibt einer Frau Schokolade. Thomas gives a woman chocolate.
Neuter	Sarah gibt dem Kind ein Spielzeug. Sara gives the child a toy.	Sarah gibt einem Kind ein Spielzeug. Sara gives a child a toy.
Plural	Thomas gibt den Frauen Schokolade. Thomas gives the women chocolate.	-

Usages of das Geschenk