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Is there any mnemonic device or song to learn all (or the most common) prepositions that take the genitive case?

The most common genitive prepositions would be

außerhalb, infolge, innerhalb, statt, trotz, um … willen, während, wegen

For the accusative case I know DOGFUB (dürch ohne gegen für um bis). For the dative, to sing 'aus außer bei mit, nach seit, von zu' to the melody of the Blue Danube. And for the two case prepositions I know this song.

But I couldn't find anything for the genitive case.

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There is the traditional brain walking aid

Oberhalb und unterhalb,
innerhalb und außerhalb,
trotz, unweit, während, wegen, statt
den 2. Fall stets bei sich hat.

Which is, however, incomplete (probably like any of these helpers, and most of the below list are corner cases that can also be used with dative, so probably really don't belong in here)

  • binnen
  • dank
  • einschließlich
  • entlang
  • exklusive
  • fern
  • inklusive
  • längs
  • laut
  • mittels
  • zufolge
  • zugunsten,
  • zuungunsten
  • zuzüglich
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I came across this in an old grammar book. But keep in mind that what was genitive 50 years ago may be dative now.

Unweit, mittels, kraft und während,
Laut, vermöge, ungeachtet,
Oberhalb und unterhalb,
Diesseits, jenseits, halber, wegen,
Statt, auch längs, zufolge, trotz
Stehen mit dem Genitiv.
Doch ist hier nicht zu vergessen,
Dass bei diesen letzten drei
Auch der Dativ richtig sei.

I don't really know if these things are really that useful; you're not going to get very far if you have to recite a jingle in your head every time you need to use a preposition.

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  • 2
    Hint: If you need line breaks in a quote, add at least two spaces before the line break.
    – tofro
    Commented Feb 13 at 13:06
  • @tofro - Thanks. I knew there was a trick to it but couldn't remember.
    – RDBury
    Commented Feb 13 at 13:24
  • @tofro - PS. The original had capitals at the start of each line like a poem, so I went a ahead and put them back in.
    – RDBury
    Commented Feb 13 at 13:32
  • As you rightly say, mittels, während, laut are prepositions where proper usage has moved more and more towards the dative to various extents since your Grammar was apparently written.
    – tofro
    Commented Feb 13 at 14:48

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