The fact that most words in German are affected by the case explains why the sentence order is more flexible than in English. For example, you can say "Der Mann isst den Apfel" (the man is eating the apple) or "Den Apfel iss der Mann." In both cases, "den Apfel" (the apple) is the accusative object, and "der Mann" is the nominative subject. I got this right from the introduction to the accusative case.

The fun begins when I look at the plural of these two nouns. What I understand so far is that the accusative case of "the" in the plural is "die" which is the same as the nominative case. So, now I'm stuck. Is the word order important in the plural? I see we can say: Die Manner essen die Äpfel. But can we also say: Die Äpfel essen die Manner. and still be understood?

Obviously, being grounded in English word order, this looks like something out of a science fictions story where mutant apples can eat people. That's where I see the fun in this investigation.

Would appreciate some feed back and corrections as appropriate.