In German there are four cases.
The Nominative case which is the subject of a sentence, e.g. the “I” in I want to give my ball to you.
There is the Accusative case which receives action (direct objects), e.g. the “ball” in I want to give my ball to you.
Then there is the Dative case which is the indirect object case, e.g. the “to you” in I want to give my ball to you.
And then there is the Genetive case which is the possesive case which would be the “Mark’s” in I want to give Mark’s ball to you. In German the sentence would be Ich will dir Marks Ball geben.
The German Cases Explained from Bamberg, Germany
This is the hardest part of learnging German. There are four cases in German and each of them have different endings for adjectives, articles and sometimes affects the ending of nouns. Nominative = subject of sentence case, I am Mark (the I am is the nomanative). Accusative = direct objects. I hit the man (the man is the accusative) Ich schlage den Mann (den Mann – akkusativ). Dative = indirect objects. Ich gebe es dem Mann (dem Mann – dative to the man). Genitive = possesive, Buch der Frau – the woman’s book. Here are the articles for each case. they go in order of (Masculine, Feminine, Neutral, Plural). Nomative: Der Die Das Die. Akkusativ: Den Die Das Die. Dative: Dem Der Dem Den. Genive: Des Der Des Der. From UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE Bamberg, Germany
I know it may seem a bit odd as the endings did not change too much in that sentence, but watch the videos and you can learn a bit better how the cases change. Good luck!