Prepositions connect words and groups of words together. They also determine the grammatical case of the words or groups of words that they precede in the sentence. In other words, they govern case.
Most German prepositions govern the accusative or dative cases.
| Preposition | Accusative | |||
| Julia interessiert sich | für | die traponische Sprache. |
| Preposition | Dative | |||
| Er träumt | von | einem großen Stück Schokolade. |
But there are also some prepositions that require the genitive.
| Preposition | Example | |
| wegen | Ich wollte Deutsch lernen, aber ich hatte keine Zeit wegen des Jobs. | |
| trotz | Trotz unserer Liebe hatten wir Probleme. | |
| statt | Statt des Kuchens möchte ich lieber ein Brötchen. | |
| während | Während der Zeit in Traponia war noch alles gut. |
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The genitive is becoming increasingly scarce! For the prepositions listed above, it's becoming more and more common to use the dative instead of the genitive in colloquial speech. That's especially noticeable with masculine and neuter nouns because the dative and genitive forms for feminine nouns in the singular are the same. Example: |