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- "I cannot wake the brothers!"
"I cannot wake the brothers!"
Translation:Ich kann die Brüder nicht wecken!
17 Comments
Why not "Ich kann den Brüdern nicht wecken!"? Are the brothers not the ones receiving the action, hence the brothers should be in the dative case? I'm speaking with comparison to helfen, which requires the receiving party to be in the dative.
Why is wecken triggering the accusative case while helfen triggers the dative case?
Wecken takes the accusative because you are directly waking someone up. With words like helfen, you are "giving help to" someone in German mentality. With the verb folgen, you are "following (behind)" so the way I think of it is an implied "hinter" which takes the dative. With the verb gefallen, things are "pleasing to me" instead of simply "like." Schmecken is "tastes great (to me)." Gehoren to "belong to me." Glauben could be seen as "give trust to." etc
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I'm a bit angry about this, I think "Ich kann nicht die Brüder wecken" should be absolutely fine?