Prepositions in German have the same purpose as in Russian. They help unite words or phrases into a single semantic unit, that is, into a sentence. Prepositions in German are usually located before the addition to which they are directly related.
Classification
This service part of speech has a classification. Prepositions are divided into three groups: those that control one case; managing two cases at once (these are Dativ and Akkusativ), as well as those that do not require after themselves any case determined by the rule. It is worth noting one interesting fact. Prepositions can control different cases - it all depends on what their grammatical context is. That is, the meaning in this case does not play a role. There are also no strict rules governing dual governance. Therefore, the prepositions of cases in the German language you just need to memorize, remember. This is the case with irregular verbs.
Use of prepositions in relation to cases
It is interesting that for some prepositions one of the existing cases is necessarily permanent. The second can be found only in some cases. It’s better to show everything with a good example. Let's say this sentence: Trotz dem Schneefall (Dativ) wollte Mark mit dem Auto in die Berge fahren. It translates as follows: "Despite the snowfall, Mark wanted to go by car to the mountains." This sentence clearly shows the use of the dative case. And this, it must be said, is quite rare in German, or rather, in colloquial speech. What about other cases? The genitive case, for example, is used in rare cases of control by the preposition des (“”), in sentences where this occurs, des comes after the noun.
Nominativ and Akkusativ
There are also prepositions with which one does not need to use additions in any strictly defined case. More specifically, als and wie are. Nouns that follow these prepositions inflect in the same way as the corresponding sentence members. This can be seen in the following example: Mario kannte ihren Schwester als Schüler (this is Nominativ). This sentence is translated as follows: "Mario knew her sister as a schoolgirl." In another way, using Akkusativ, the phrase can be constructed as follows: Mario kannte ihren schwester als Schüler. It translates in almost the same way: “Mario knew her sister, even when she was a schoolgirl.” Both examples are directly related to each other. Only in the first case, the subject is correlated with the noun after als (respectively, it is necessary to use Nominativ), but in the second, Akkusativ is used, since there is an addition. In general, the prepositions of control in the German language are not complicated, the main thing here is to learn the purpose of the cases and the translation of the words themselves.
Universal use of prepositions
This is a rather interesting topic, and it should also be known in order to be able to correctly express your thoughts. If you want, say, to say: “I'm going to Germany”, then nach will be used competently. This preposition indicates the direction, and in this case, the sentence will look like this: Ich fahre nach Deutschland. By the way, nach is used in relation to countries that do not have an article in German. These are middle-class states, such as Russia, Italy, Germany, France, etc. Also, this excuse is posed if you need to answer the question of what time it is. For example: zwanzig Minuten nach fünf (twenty minutes after six). Only in this case the preposition is translated as “after” (if literally). I would also like to note with special attention the often found Für. Usually this pretext is used in relation to someone. Für dich, Für mich, Für alle da (for you, for me, for everyone), etc. That is, it indicates the purpose, purpose, addressee. But often this pretext is used as a substitute for the meaning "for someone." For example: Sie hat schon für mich bezahlt (she already paid for me).
What are the prepositions
Finally, I would like to list all the existing prepositions in German. The table in the form of which they are most often represented is not very large, and remembering everything is much easier than it seems. People learning this language remember them by comparison. An - translated as “above” or “on”, depends on the use of case. Auf locates a person, object, or even phenomenon: Alles was auf der Bühnepassiert, ist Wahnsinn (translation: “Everything that happens on stage is insanity”). Hinter is a translation of our preposition “for”, and German in is an absolute analogy of the same word in English. That is, it translates as “in”: Ich bin jetzt in der Kneipe (translation: “I'm in the pub now”). There are prepositions über (through, above) and vor (before, before, before).
As a matter of fact, these and the prepositions listed above are the most used and often found in the German language. This topic is not as complicated as, for example, the use of verbs. Prepositions in German have the same meaning and translation as in Russian, and this determines the comparative ease of mastering them. And if you practice their use, then very soon the result will be visible, and the person will already not hesitate to competently build a proposal.