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I am studying welche and Diese and I don't know how to decline to the nominative and accusative forms. I only know that nominative is related to direct object (C.O.D in French) and that accusative is related to indirect object (C.O.I).

La mère de Grégoire. (Grégoire's mother).

Grégoire parle à sa mère (Grégoire talks to his mother).

I don't know which form to use when having :

Sieh mal, die Jacke ist doch toll!:

  • Welche?
  • Welches?

It looks like a direct object so I would have said "Welche".

But what if the adj. pron. "welche" was at the begining? Would it be different?

Welcher Anzug ist besser?

Otherwise, I don't know when Welche is in the accusative form. I have only studied the language form one year.

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Revolucion for Monica
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  • I guess you meant to say "dative" whenever you wrote "nominative", didn't you? Because the "direct object" is usually the dative. — On the other hand, your example is in nominative case, indeed. – Em1 Nov 14 '16 at 14:54
  • @Em1, accusative, right? – Carsten S Nov 15 '16 at 10:33
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    @CarstenS Darn. Of course. I didn't notice that the whole second sentence is incorrect. Direct object ~ accusative and indirect object ~ dative. — And I didn't realise that the first example is neither one. The premise is entirely wrong, I'm afraid. – Em1 Nov 15 '16 at 10:43
  • https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/welcher – Carsten S Nov 15 '16 at 14:57

3 Answers3

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The point of matter is the gender of the noun. In the German language, a noun can be feminine, masculine or neutral.

  • die Jacke = weiblich = feminine
  • der Anzug = männlich = masculine
  • das Auto = neutral = neutral

Now take for each gender the corresponding interrogative:

  • Die Jacke ist doch toll. Welche Jacke ist toll? or Welche Jacke?
  • Der Anzug ist besser. Welcher Anzug ist besser? or Welcher Anzug?
  • Das Auto ist schnell. Welches Auto ist schnell? or Welches Auto?

To this questions one can anwser with diese/dieser/dieses in the same manner:

  • Die Jacke ist doch toll. Welche Jacke? Diese Jacke.
  • Der Anzug ist besser. Welcher Anzug? Dieser Anzug.
  • Das Auto ist schnell. Welches Auto? Dieses Auto.

Is this the answer you were searching for?

Jan
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3

As a native speaker I am sure in saying that the declination of "welche" is mainly dependent on the grammatical gender and the case of the noun "welche/r/s" refers to. The position of the word is not relevant.

When referring to a noun in nominative case, this is how you apply "Welche/r/s":

"Welche" is used when referring to a plural noun or nouns of feminine grammatical gender.

"Welcher" is used for male nouns.

"Welches" is used for neuter nouns.

Referring to an accusative noun, declination is the same for feminine nouns; only male nouns are used differently; "Welchen" is used there.

  • Markus kaufte sich heute einen Anzug, welchen er gleich anzog.
  • Welchen Anzug fand Markus so toll?

I hope this helped!

Locké
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1

There is, unfortunately, no way around identifying a noun’s gender and case in the sentence in question when determining which form of welche and diese is correct.

Sieh mal, die Jacke{Nom. Fem. Sing.} ist doch toll!

Welche{Nom. Fem. Sing.} Jacke?

Diese{Nom. Fem. Sing.} Jacke.

Wollen Sie den Anzug{Akk. Mask. Sing.} kaufen?

Welchen{Akk. Mask. Sing.} Anzug?

Diesen{Akk. Mask. Sing.} Anzug.

Magst du dich in diesem{Dat. Mask. Sing.} oder in diesem Spiegel{Dat. Mask. Sing.} anschauen?

In welchem{Dat. Mask. Sing.} Spiegel? Ich sehe keinen.

Die Katze des Hofs{Gen. Mask. Sing.} ist gestern gestorben.

Welches{Gen. Mask. Sing.} Hofs?

Gefällt Ihnen das Auto{Nom. Neut. Sing.}?

Welches{Nom. Neut. Sing.} Auto?

Mögen Sie Brote{Akk. Neut. Plur.}?

Welche{Akk. Neut. Plur.} Brote?

As a side note, you used the termns direct and indirect object. In German grammar, it is better to use dative object, accusative object, genitive object and prepositional object to refer to different types of object. While there is a large overlap between English and French indirect objects and German dative objects, note that a dative object typically connects to the verb directly as a direct object in English and French would. Prepositional objects typically have a case governed by the preposition which can be either dative or accusative.

Finally remember that French direct objects and German accusative objects do not match perfectly. Consider the verb aider qn which in French has a direct object and its translation jemandem helfen which in German requires dative.

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