Relative Pronouns in the Dative with Prepositions – Learn Easy Way / Relativpronomen im Dativ und mit Präposition

In this lesson, you’ll find out everything about the relative pronouns in the dative with prepostions. How do they sound in the dative case, what are the relative pronouns with prepositions.

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CONTENTS

Dative
Relative pronouns with prepositions

DATIVE

To form a relative clause with a dative case, we need three pieces of information, just like with the nominative and accusative case. If we have two sentences, the first sentence should provide two pieces of information: number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine/neuter). The second sentence should provide the third piece of information (case).

For example:
Das ist der Mann. Ich habe dem Mann viel geholfen.

The noun “der Mann” in the first sentence is singular and masculine, indicated by the definite article “der”. This provides two pieces of information. In the second sentence, the word “dem Mann” is important. The noun “Mann” is preceded by the definite article “dem” instead of “der”. This is because the verb “helfen” requires the dative case, and in German, the dative is expressed with the article. Therefore, it’s not the noun that changes, but the article. In this case, it is the definite article “dem”.

For example:

 Ich helfe dem Mann.  – I’m helping the man.
Wem? – Dem Mann. – Whom? – The man.

We found the third piece of information, which is DATIVE.

Now we have all the information: singular, masculine and dative

Let’s see how it looks in the table:

 singular 
 masculinefeminineneuterplural
nominativederdiedasdie
dativedemderdemdenen

Now we can easily make a relative clause:

Das ist der Mann, dem ich viel geholfen habe.

Don’t forget that a relative clause is a dependent clause and that the verb comes at the end of the sentence.

Example for plural:
Das sind die Freunde.  Ich habe ihnen viel geholfen.
Das sind die Freunde, denen ich viel geholfen habe.

Relative Pronouns With Prepositions

If the relative pronoun is in a relative clause with a preposition, then the preposition determines the case, and the preposition always comes before the relative pronoun.

If a relative pronoun is part of a relative clause with a preposition, the preposition determines the case, and it always comes before the relative pronoun.

For example:
Das ist der Mann. Ich habe mit ihm die ganze Nacht gesprochen.

In the first sentence we have the noun der Mann, which we want to describe in more detail. Der Mann is a masculine noun in the singular. Look in the table under nominative and masculine gender.

In the second sentence, we have the preposition mit and the personal pronoun in the dative, because the preposition mit always goes with the dative. And now if we look in the table under the dative and masculine gender, we will find the relative pronoun dem.

 singular 
 masculinefeminineneuterplural
nominativederdiedasdie
dativedemderdemdenen

Our relative clause will be as follows:
Das ist der Mannmit dem ich die ganze Nacht gesprochen habe.

The verb sprechen requires the preposition mit: sprechen mit + D.

See the lesson Verbs with prepositions if you want to learn more about this topic.

There ara here some more examples:
Da kommt meine Freundin, auf die ich eine Stunde gewartet habe. ( warten auf+ A)
Das ist die Frau, mit der ich mich gestern getroffen habe. ( sich treffen mit+ D)

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