Adjectives that govern case

German adjectives provide more information about something or someone, an occurrence or a condition. They often describe nouns and personal pronouns. Some adjectives can directly govern the grammatical case of the nouns or pronouns that follow them.

Accusative adjectives
Adjectives that describe size and length require the accusative.

        Accusative   Adjective
hoch:    Der Berg ist   500 Meter   hoch.
lang:   Die Insel ist   einen Kilometer   lang.

 

There are other adjectives that govern the accusative case, too.

          Accusative    Adjective
wert:   Es war   einen Versuch   wert.

 

Dative adjectives
You already also know some adjectives that require the dative case.

         Dative   Adjective
wichtig:   Das ist   mir   wichtig.
klar:   Das ist   ihm   klar.
peinlich:   Das ist   mir   peinlich.

 

Genitive adjectives
There are also adjectives that require the genitive. Some of them precede a genitive object.

         Adjective    Genitive
voll:   Das Wattenmeer ist   voll   ekliger Würmer

 

Sometimes, especially in colloquial speech, the inflected form "voller" is used instead of "voll". "voller" is the genitive plural form.

Adjectives with the genitive are often substituted by other constructions using a preposition + the dative.

Genitive    Wattenmeer ist voller ekliger Würmer.
Preposition + dative   Das Wattenmeer ist voll von ekligen Würmern.