Two Questions for My German Final

[The Rose Dragon]

1) How does the thing called "Präteritum Modelverben" work? In fact, what does Präteritum even mean?

2) How do reflexive pronouns work? And what are the reflexive pronouns? Can they be non-accusative?

[Eldan]

Not entirely sure about "Modelverben", since it's been a while since I actually had a german class myself, though "Präteritum" is the past tense, i.e. "Ich ging" from "gehen".

Reflexivpronomen: a pronoun which works on the subject of the sentence. I.e. "Er sah sich im Spiegel" - > "He saw himself in the mirror."

[The Rose Dragon]

So, what are reflexive pronouns? For example, I know sich and mich, but what are the others?

Modal verbs refer to müssen, können, wollen and such.

[Eldan]

Hmm. You know, you'd best get these answers from someone who had a german class recently... still, I'll try.

According to Wikipedia, the reflexive pronouns are: meiner, mich, mir, deiner, dich, dir, seiner, sich, unser, uns, euer, euch.

Oh, and I can't think of a non-accusative example, but take that with a grain of salt.

[GolemsVoice]

1) A Modalverb always says in what context the subject of the sentence interacts with the object of the sentence. Modalverbs are verbs like können, müssen, dürfen. The Präteritum means past. I'm not really sure, but I would translate it as simple past in English.

So, a modal verb is used thusly (and,if I read this correctly, it works in German as well as in English): You must call your boss. Du musst den Chef anrufen. Must/müssen is the Modalverb here. Präteritum would be: You had to call your boss./Du musstest den Chef anrufen.
I hope this clears things up a bit, I had to llok most of it up myself, since I'm really fuzzy on grammatical terms. Which shames me deeply.

2) Reflexive pronouns are easier. They always "point back" at the subject of the sentence. Himself would be an English example.
I've cut myself/Ich habe mich geschnitten. Mich would be the reflexive pronoun here, because it goes back to the subject "Ich", who cut himself.

I hope this helps! I'm no grammar man myself, sadly.

Also, if your final isn't done yet, best of luck, or, Alles Gutes.

EDIT: Oh, and, yes, I'd say that reflexive pronouns are always accusative.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Certain verbs always have reflexive pronouns attached, such as sich treffen, sich kümmern, etc.

And I don't think the "always accusative" thing is true (if it is, I'm worse at German than I thought). It's more like "usually accusative".

[Eldan]

Care to give an example? Because I spent a lot of time thinking about it, but couldn't find one.

[The Rose Dragon]

At least in English, it can certainly be dative, but I don't think there is a difference between the dative case and the accusative case of words.

[GolemsVoice]

Reflexive Pronoun [Tiny Aberration]

Always Lawful Accusative?


Well, I think you could make them dative, but I'm not sure they still would be reflexive pronouns.

"He Poured himself a drink" "Er goß sich einen Drink ein" would be dative, if I'm not grossly mistaken.

[Eldan]

Right, that's Dativ. I was actually thinking of the object here "einen Drink", which is accusative. "Sich" (Wem?) is dativ.

Question solved, then.