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I believe that in the sentence

Ich danke 'du/dir/dich'

that:

  • ich = subject
  • danke = verb
  • du = direct object.

Wouldn't that mean that it would be "Ich danke dich"? I hear people say "Ich danke dir" frequently and it's a little confusing.

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You can't say "Ich danke du / dich", it's just "Ich danke dir", can't tell you exactly why, but I'm a native speaker ;) – 23tux Jan 11 at 19:59
It's tough for native speakers from languages without noun declension to get used to Dativ. English has only the vestigial "objective" case (who / whom) and the natural inclination of English speakers when learning German is to use Akkusativ. You'll get used to it, Darkenor :) ... btw I'd be surprised if this question hasn't been asked and answered already. – Eugene Seidel Jan 11 at 20:05
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Basically, direct object and akkusative object are two different things. Just like reflexive verbs and reflexive structures are two different things. We just force our English concepts on German. Learning a language-agnostic grammar and applying it for each is a better way of learning, IMO. – Anurag Kalia Jan 12 at 14:56
@Anurag: I totally agree. Unfortunately there is not really awareness of the fact that grammatical definitions for Latin based terms vary a great deal from language to language. Even the definition of "transitive" is not the same in English, German and French... so one ought to be really careful with the jargon :) – Emanuel Jan 12 at 17:25
The etymology of “danken” may also shed some light on why the dative is used instead of the accusative. – K. Stm. Jan 17 at 21:46

3 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Ich danke dir.

is the only correct version. Danken takes the dative case. You will never hear otherwise.

I would recommend to forget about the concept of direct and indirect object; or better, you should realize that the definitions of direct and indirect object in German and English are not identical. Neither is the use. So just because some verb takes a direct object in English doesn't mean that that is the case in German.

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up vote 4 down vote

Emanuel already mentions that Ich danke dir is the correct way of saying I thank you.

I just want to tell you how you can simply answer this question with help of some online tools. Unfortunately, only a few sources mention the necessary information explicitly and, if they do, this information is sometimes a little hidden.

Starting with Duden, you'll find the following example to the entry to danken:

auch ohne Dativobjekt: er dankte kurz und ging

In this sentence no object is given and since the hint tells you that the dative object is missing you can guess that the usual object following danken is dative.

On Wiktionary (and Duden, too) you'll find this information:

1 (jemandem für etwas) seinen Dank aussprechen

With a little knowledge of German you know that the ending -m in jemandem hints that the object is dative. Accusative would be jemanden as in jemanden verfolgen.

Having a look on the entries to dir in Duden or du in Wiktionary you'll find out that dir is dative:

du, Genitiv: dei·ner, veraltet: dein, Dativ: dir, Akkusativ: dich, Plural: ihr, Genitiv: eu·er, Dativ: euch, Akkusativ: euch

Finally I need to mention that danken can be follow by dative, accusative and even genitive objects.
This information is provided on the danken entry on DWDS.de. Since coloring is not enabled on this site I used the sup and sub tags to distinguish dative from accusative.

mit Dat./mit Akk.
niemand dankt dir deine Mühe
kein Mensch dankte ihr ihre Arbeit

mit Gen.
danke der Nachfrage (umgangssprachlich)

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+1 for the example of genitive object. – Deve Jan 21 at 22:20
up vote 0 down vote

Wem:

"Ich gebe Dir den Ball."   
"Ich bringe Dir einen Apfel."  
"Ich danke Dir (für den schönen Abend)."
"Ich werfe Dir (den Ball zu)."

Wen:

"Ich schlage Dich."
"Ich hasse Dich."
"Ich liebe Dich."
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Yepp, Wem? gehört zum Dativ und Wen? gehört zum Akkusativ. Aber gefragt wurde, warum es in dem fall so ist, und (implizit) wann anders. Ich kann aber auch nichts anbieten, außer auswendig lernen. – harper Jan 12 at 12:49
Wahrscheinlich ist es schon so "selbstverständlich" geworden dass man es gar nicht mehr hinterfragt. Ich hätte aus "aus lateinisch (casus) dativus, zu lateinisch dare = Platz machen (geben) und lateinisch datum = Gegebenes." etwas zuwendendes interpretiert. So wäre "Ich schlage den Klaus" Akkusativ und "Ich schlage dem Klaus die Zähne aus" Dativ. – bummi Jan 12 at 12:59
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The personal pronouns in mid-sentence shouldn't be capitalized – Emanuel Jan 12 at 17:27
Hier hakt bei mir es mit dem Übersetzen. Ich hätte es als Höflichkeitsanrede gesehen. – bummi Jan 12 at 18:20

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