Hi guys,

so.. I know what this word is and when to use it etc. but I'm trying to explain it to my bf who's learning German at the moment, he'd like to know what the rule is and I am utterly useless when it comes to explaining why anything is the way it is, for me...it just is. So far, the books have helped, however we've hit a wall with "mir" - how did your teachers explain this? Any tips or great ways to remember/learn this? I've googled to see if any language websites etc. have something, but found nothing as yet.

I've given him examples of sentences, but short of learning every single sentence there is in which "mir" is used, this won't help...

Thanks!
Rilana

The Michel Thomas tapes I used to listen to explained it as "to me", and dir is "to you"

like "es gefallt mir" means "it is pleasing to me" i think?

"mich" would just mean "me"?

But that was a while ago, I might be wrong

Click to view attachment

thanks Schotte, that might help...will test it out on a few sentences and see if it makes sense consistently.

Jamie - I have no idea what you're trying to tell me...perhaps a more direct approach might help. Never been good at charades.

Methinks that would be the Russian space station "Mir" (which I think actually means "Earth")

Your question is a little odd though, because it seems to imply he isn't learning the overall structure of the language. "mir" fits in nicely, as Schotte explained, to the frame work of subject, direct object, indirect object, genitive, etc.

Although you don't have to learn the differences between those things to learn German, if you do, then everything sort of falls nicely into place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_space_station

@thefirelane, he is learning the verbs at the moment and the various conjugations, so yes he is learning the overall structure of the language, however no simple rule has been given to him yet regarding the "mir" except that it's indirect, which isn't helping him in trying to decide when to use it. The teacher and the books he has have at this stage not gone in to that and the question came up yesterday, looking through the rest of the book I couldn't find anything that could have helped me explain, except examples of sentences. His next lessons aren't until January and so in the meantime he's working on learning the verbs & some more vocab. But as some of the sentences he is currently constructing require "mir", it came up.

Hope this clarifies your bemusement

anyhoo - I think Schotte's answer was good and I'll give that a shot! Thanks again.

German Dative Verbs ... Also see > The Dative Case

ahhh - that's excellent. Thanks a million!

Dont forget the bavarian "mir", as in "Mir san mir!"

This really doesn't work anywhere near enough to make that a rule - you should stop listening to his shit now. For example "Kannst du mir bitte helfen?" - "Can you please help to me". This might work in some cases, but I wouldn't say enough to call it any type of rule.

Unfortunately there is no rule for "mich" and "mir" in many cases. Sometimes is easy, like with prepositions. If you're using a Dativ preposition (mit, zu, von etc) then it's going to be "mir". If you're using an akkusativ one (fuer, gegen, durch) then it'll be "mich". The hard part is that there are just some words make you use the Dativ case (mir) and some make you use the akkusativ case (mich). In the above case, helfen just happens to turn it Dativ.

mir ist egal

When I was at school, we learnt which prepositions take the dative and accusative cases with the following:

"Aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu - the dative case we give to you"

Accusative "F.U.D.G.E.B.O.W" - Fuer, um, durch, gegen, entlang, bis, ohne, wider

Lame as you like, but I still remember it to this day. Anyone else care to share their German "Eselbruecken"?

http://genevieve-cory.150m.com/music/wechsel.html has lots.