---
title: "Dative Verbs"
description: "German verbs that always take a dative object (even without a preposition) — examples, explanation of why, and a link to the full reference list."
source: "https://germanforenglishspeakers.com/verbs/dative-verbs"
crawled: "2026-06-30"
---

# Dative Verbs

There are certain verbs in German that always put their object in the dative, even when there's no preposition and it seems to be a direct object. In the [Perfect Tenses](/verbs/perfect-tenses.md "5. The Perfect Tenses") section, we mentioned a few that take _sein_, but most of them actually take _haben_. Here are a few more examples:

| Verb | Example | English |
|---|---|---|
| **antworten** (to answer) | _Ich antworte **dir** \[not **dich**\] Morgen._ | I'll answer you tomorrow. |
| **danken** (to thank) | _Ich danke **dir** für deine Hilfe._ | Thank you for your help. |
| **gefallen** (to please) | _Es gefällt **mir** \[not **mich**\]._ | It pleases me / I like it. |
| **helfen** (to help) | _Kann ich **dir** helfen?_ | Can I help you? |
| **raten** (to advise) | _Ich habe **ihm** \[not **ihn**\] geraten, es nicht zu tun._ | I advised him not to do it. |

Sometimes you'll see verbs like schreiben (to write) identified as dative verbs, because they commonly take a dative (indirect) object in addition to an accusative (direct) one, as when you write a letter \[accusative\] to a friend \[dative\]. That's not what we're talking about here, though. A "true" dative verb is one that takes a dative object _without_ an accusative object, and there are only about 50 of them. If you look closely, what's going on with most of them is that an implied direct object is being dropped, often because it's being used as the verb itself. You _answer_ someone by giving them an _answer_, help them by giving _help_, advise them by giving _advice_, and so on.

Click [here](/reference/dative-verbs.md "Dative Verbs") for our full list of dative verbs.

[Continue to next section >>](/verbs/present-participles-and-gerunds.md)