Prepositions in German is a topic that I unfortunately always skipped in my early days of learning German. Everything changed during one of my trips to Germany. When I got off the train at the main station in Berlin, I was tired from the trip and dreaming of a hot coffee. I found a cozy café and was glad for the opportunity to speak German. I thought I would be able to handle placing my order without any problems, but the moment the waiter approached my table, everything began to get confused.
I wanted to order coffee with milk and without sugar, and although I knew the basic words like coffee, milk and sugar well, I had forgotten what prepositions I should use and what cases I needed to combine them behind. “Eine Kaffee … mit? … zu? … Milch … ohne? Sugar bitte.” I became stressed and suddenly all the prepositions I had been learning started running through my head, but I couldn’t organize my thoughts to form a correct sentence. Fortunately, the waiter showed a lot of patience, so we were able to come to an agreement and after a short while I received my desired coffee.
However, this situation stayed in the back of my mind for a long time and motivated me to learn German prepositions more effectively.
What are prepositions?
Prepositions are short words that help us understand the relationship between different parts of a sentence and affect the precision of communication. We most often encounter prepositions of place, time, manner or cause. Examples of prepositions in English are: in, on, under, before, behind, beside, from, to, without, through, etc.
Prepositions in German require the use of the correct case (which mostly does not correspond to the case in English). As a result, they cause a lot of difficulties – at Taalhammer we know this from our own and our users’ experience. If you want to master them, you need to learn which ones connect to the accusative (Akkusativ), which ones to the dative (Dativ) and which ones to the genitive (Genitiv).
In this article you will find all the rules you should know to understand how to use prepositions. However, in practice, you won’t be able to remember all the rules when speaking German, because you simply won’t have the time.
Take, for example, the sentence: Ich lerne seit einem Jahr Deutsch (I’ve been learning German for a year). In order to say it correctly in German, first of all you need to know what kind of article the word “year” has – das Jahr. Secondly, you need to know what case seit (from) is combined with, and finally you need to properly combine this information and conjugate the article accordingly for this case.
A lot of work, right? So how do you learn the cases so that you can use them fluently? You need to develop grammatical intuition. You will train it by learning whole phrases and sentences by heart. Going back to our example sentence: you can avoid thinking about all this theory if you simply learn by heart the phrase seit einem Jahr (from a year). This is the best way to achieve linguistic fluency and improve your conversational skills. Therefore, for each preposition, I have prepared sample phrases and sentences for you to make memorization easier.
German prepositions combining with Akkusativ
Prepositions combining with the accusative (Akkusativ) are: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, entlang. There are no exceptions, and therefore it is easy to master their use. Whenever you see these prepositions, think of Akkusativ.
German prepositions combining with Dativ
Prepositions combining with the predicate (Dativ) are: aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, gegenüber. Here, too, there are no exceptions, and it’s best to just simply learn the sequence by heart.
German prepositions combining with Genitiv
Prepositions combining with the genitive (Genitiv) are: anhand, anlässlich, infolge, staat, anstaat, aufgrund, trotz, während, wegen. This means that after using these prepositions, you should use the noun or pronoun in the genitive (although in colloquial speech it also sometimes happens that they are used with the predicate).
Prepositions of place that combine with Accusativ or Dativ
Some prepositions indicating place in German do not clearly assign themselves to a single case. These are called variable prepositions, or Wechselpräpositionen. Depending on the context, they can combine with the accusative (Akkusativ) or the dative (Dativ). This category includes the following prepositions:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| an | by |
| auf | on |
| hinter | behind |
| in | in |
| neben | next to |
| unter | under |
| über | above |
| vor | in front of |
| zwischen | between |
Short forms: preposition + article
Prepositions can change their form depending on the case with which they are combined. This means that when combined with a definite article in the nominative or in the accusative, they undergo a pulling down, that is, they simply blend together. This procedure makes the language sound more fluent and natural, and pronunciation becomes easier and faster.
| an + dem | am |
| an + das | ans |
| in + dem | im |
| in + das | ins |
| zu + der | zur |
| zu + dem | zum |
| auf + das | aufs |
| bei + dem | beim |
| von + dem | vom |
Look at the example sentences:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| am Flughafen | at the airport |
| Ich bin am Flughafen. | I’m at the airport. |
| ans Meer | by the sea |
| Wir fahren jedes Jahr ans Meer. | Every year we travel by the sea. |
| im Garten | in the garden |
| Er ist im Garten. | He is in the garden. |
| ins Kino | to the cinema |
| Sie geht ins Kino. | She’s going to the cinema. |
| zur Schule | to school |
| Wir fahren zur Schule. | We are going to school. |
| zum Arzt | to the doctor |
| Ich gehe zum Arzt. | I’m going to the doctor. |
| aufs Konzert | to the concert |
| Ich freue mich aufs Konzert. | I look forward to the concert. |
| vom Chef | from the boss |
| Das Geschenk ist vom Chef. | The gift is from the boss. |
Take a look at our article if you want to learn more about the articles in German.
Master prepositions in German with the Taalhammer app!
I hope that after reading this article, prepositions are no longer a mystery to you, but a simple grammatical issue. Mastering them will enable you to speak and form sentences more precisely in German. Take advantage of our German course and learn using the whole-sentence method. Ready-made sentences developed by our experienced team of teachers, linguists and polyglots are waiting for you there. What’s more, in our app you have the option to personalize your learning and add your own content, so you can learn vocabulary tailored to your needs. Join our community and start learning effectively. Good luck in learning German!
