10.10 Reflexive verbs taking the dative case-1

Present tense of reflexive verbs taking a dative pronoun

A number of verbs use the reflexive pronoun in the dative case. only two of the dative reflexive pronouns are different from their equivalent accusative reflexive pronoun. These are mich and dich which become mir and dir respectively.

 

Here is the present tense of sich vorstellen, a separable verb which takes a reflexive pronoun in the dative case when it means "to imagine":

 

Great care must be taken with using this particular verb. As we have seen, when sich vorstellen takes a reflexive pronoun in the accusative case, it means "to introduce oneself". And when it takes a non-reflexive object in the accusative case it means "to introduce somebody else":

 

Ich stelle ihn vor (I introduce him (= accusative))

Ich stelle mich vor (I introduce myself (= accusative))

Ich stelle mir vor (I imagine (= dative))