Question about plural accusative
Can someone tell me why in this sentence 'den' instead of 'die' is used?
Das Essen ist den Elefanten willkommen. In accusative case, use "den" for masculine nouns like "Elefanten"
2 Comments
"Elefanten" is dative, not accusative. Question: "Wem ist das Essen willkommen?". Answer: "den Elefanten". "Willkommen" goes with dative.
Doing a search on "Elefanten" brings up a number of previous discussions on this topic: This one in particular is informative: http://duolingo.com/#/comment/135 It seems that "Elefant" takes on "-en" even when singular, in the accusative, which was news to me. I do wish they would be a little more explicit about these strange grammatical particulars.
Edit: After some searching, here is a page with further useful information, including how to identify such nouns: http://www.vistawide.com/german/grammar/german_nouns03.htm
