Dieses Gericht gefällt der ganzen Familie.

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Breakdown of Dieses Gericht gefällt der ganzen Familie.

• die Familie: the family
• ganz: whole
• gefallen: to please

Questions & Answers about Dieses Gericht gefällt der ganzen Familie.

Why do we use gefallen in this sentence instead of mögen, which means to like?

In German gefallen literally means to be pleasing to. The thing that pleases someone is the grammatical subject (nominative) and the person pleased is in the dative. By contrast, mögen treats the person as the subject and the thing liked as a direct object.
Examples:

• Dieses Gericht gefällt der ganzen Familie. (This dish pleases the whole family.)
• Die ganze Familie mag dieses Gericht. (The whole family likes this dish.)

Why is der ganzen Familie in the dative case?

Because gefallen is a dative verb: the person (or group) who is pleased must be in the dative. Familie is feminine singular, so the dative article is der and the adjective ganz takes the weak ending -en, giving der ganzen Familie.

What case is dieses Gericht and why is it in that case?

Dieses Gericht is the subject of the sentence, so it’s in the nominative case. Gericht is a neuter noun, so its nominative singular demonstrative is dieses.

Can we change the word order and start with der ganzen Familie?