Recently I have started studying German. I came across the phrase "Wie geht es Dir" which translates to How are you in English. I have read that Dir is used when an object is an indirect object. Could you tell me how "you" in this sentence is an indirect object?
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Related question.– guidot ♦Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 10:52
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1 Answer
The concept of "direct" and "indirect" objects doesn't apply in German. Instead, it has verb-specific valence frames which decide what arguments there can be and what case they take. The impersonal use of "gehen" occurs with a dative complement, but there isn't a generally valid construction that explains all uses of the dative.
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This construction is an instance of a family of idiomatic constructions that use dative reflexivives to express, I guess, subjective impression... cf. mir scheint, mir kommt vor, mir ist warm/kalt, even mir ist (nicht) erinnerlich. Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 8:23