The dative: dem, der, dem and den + -n
CEFR A2 · part 1
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
The seven prepositions that take the dative: mit, nach, aus, zu, von, bei, seitAutomatically putting whatever follows these seven into the dative, without stopping to…Verbs that take the dative: helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören, schmeckenRecognising the dozen German verbs that take a dative rather than a direct object, and…The Perfekt with haben: the past that people actually speakTelling any past event the way Germans do when they speak: haben conjugated in second…The Perfekt with sein: moving and changing stateDeciding in a second whether a verb takes haben or sein, using the two questions that…The participle: ge- -t, ge- -en, and the ones with no ge-Building the participle of any verb: the ge- -t mould for regular ones, ge- -en for…The six modals: können, müssen, wollen, dürfen, sollen, mögenUsing the six modals with their odd conjugation —first and third person are identical…The rule, in three lines
The dative is the third set of articles, and it marks who something happens to. Masculine and neuter give dem, feminine gives der, and the plural gives den with an -n stuck onto the noun: dem Mann, der Frau, dem Kind, den Kindern. The marking lives INSIDE the article: German needs no preposition where your language puts «to».
The usual slip. Seeing der in front of a feminine and assuming a gender mistake. In the dative die becomes der, so der Frau is not a masculine: it is «to the woman». And in the plural it is not enough to change the article to den — you also stick an -n onto the noun: den Kindern, den Freunden.
Why it catches you out. English has two ways of saying it —«I give the teacher the book» and «I give the book to the teacher»— and the second tempts you into a German zu. But the first one already IS the German order, so you are closer than you think. And English still declines its pronouns: dem is to der exactly what him is to he, and nobody says «I give he the book».