h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most of the problem is that I never had to learn this in English.

Hi Sad, Bad,

I can't think of a hard and fast rule.

If you ....

kick the ball
write a letter

those are all verbs with a direct object (ball, letter).

If you ...

kick Linus the ball
write Mum a letter

Linus and Mum are the indirect objects.

Quite often there's a preposition that gives it away.

Kick the ball towards Linus.
Write a letter to your Mum.

There are some verbs (I think they're called intransitive) that can never take a direct object. The verb "to be" (German sein) is one. Although you say "I am me", the "me" isn't the direct object.

Germans sometimes talk about the wer/wen/wem/wessen case instead.
That's harder to describe. In English we tend to be lazy about using the correct form (who/whom especially) or they're the same.

Who said that? (wer - nominative))
Who do you love? (wen - accusative)
To whom should I give this letter? (wem - dative)
Whose book is this? (wessen - genitive)


I hated it, but I had to learn Latin at school. If nothing else, I learned how languages are structured. Latin has six cases. When I had to learn German I was lucky - I knew what the basic four were.

If it's any consolation, I've been struggling with Hungarian for four years!

Okay TC, here I am.
(To get the gratuliere bit out the way first: it meant 'to give congratulations' so you do it 'to' someone. Doesn't danken work the same way?)
1. The vast majority of verbs are transitive, This means they must have a direct object, which is in the accusative case.
eg I make, I need, I bought, I love - aren't grammatically complete without an object.
2. Some verbs (damn them) are both transitive and intransitive - I sing madrigals and I sing are both OK
3. Some verbs are never transitive. I wonder,I think, I am,

What about that last one? I am a teacher. I am a mother. I am a pedant. These are grammatically the same case as I am (the nominative) and the construction's called a complement.
eg
Alison(nominative) is my officemate (nominative), She (nominative) thinks I'm mad (nominative adjective functioning as complement) because ( keep laughing (no object) when I read h2g2(direct object/ accusative) I like her (direct object/accusative) very much. She has Feng Shuied the office(direct object/accusative)
HT(nominative)H

Thank you WS.

And Ausnahmsweise.

These are two different ways of thinking, both of which I can relate to, and I hope that with further examples, which I shall distribute liberally throughout the lessons, it might eventually all settle in Buttercup's mind.

It is also difficult to understand because we haven't explained all the prepositions yet, so maybe we should complete the list Ausnahmsweise has quoted.

Today we shall do the declension of adjectives in conjunction with the indefinite article.