12.10 The genitive case - prepositions

Prepositions taking the genitive case

The following prepositions are normally written with the genitive case in formal written German:

 

 

Notes

1. The preposition meaning "instead of" can either be written as "statt" or "anstatt".

 

2. You may also find the preposition "auf Grund" written as one word "aufgrund".

 

3. All of the above prepositions take the genitive in formal written German, but in conversational German you will often hear them used with the dative case. In Switzerland and Austria, "trotz" takes the dative case in formal written German as well as in conversational German.

 

4. The genitive of the personal pronoun is now deemed to be archaic, and the dative form of these pronouns is used after genitive prepositions in both spoken and written German - e.g. "trotz ihnen" (= despite them), "wegen ihm" (= because of him), "statt ihr" (= instead of her).