The folowing is a quick overview on how and what to watch out for when forming sentences with accusative prepositions.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: Varied
Here's How:
- Find the appropriate preposition:
bis, durch, für, gegen, ohne, um
(see German Accusative Prepositions for more details)
- Choose to either place your prepositional phrase after the subject + verbal phrase (more common) or before, while keeping in mind the time, manner, place sentence structure guideline.
Ich werde bis nächsten Samstag hier bleiben. (I'm staying here till next Saturday.) - Change word endings accordingly.
Check your definite articles, pronouns and adjectives.
In an accusative prepositional phrase this means:- The only definite article change: der -> den.
- Pronouns that change: ich->mich, du-> dich, er->ihn, wir->uns, ihr -> euch.
- For personal pronoun changes, see next link.
- Some adjectives will change depending whether they are preceded by a definite article or not.( See Adjective Endings.)
- Add some colloquial German: Especially in spoken German, the following prepositional accusative contractions are very common.
ums (um + das)
durchs (durch + das)
fürs (für + das) - Example:
You have to pull the wire through the hole.
Preposition through -> durch
Du musst + den Draht durch das kleine Loch ziehen.
das kleine Loch -> stays the same in the accusative case
Contraction: durch + das -> durchs
Du musst den Draht durch das/durchs kleine Loch ziehen.
