Ein, Eine, und Einen

Why do you say "einen Kaffee" instead of "eine Kaffee"?

Hello Anita,

Welcome!

I think we have answered it clearly over here:

Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/german-grammar/proper-article

I'm sure there are other good answers elsewhere on the forum. Lots of topics with einen, so it may depend on your usage, but I think that if you are using it with einen, it must be Accusative, even though you do not give any references or show us that you have done any of your own research into the topic.

Good luck,

-Jason

Hi Anita,

Welcome to Rocket Languages. Kaffee is masculine so it will only have the feminine article 'die' in plural as all nouns take the femine gender for plural. "Einen" is the indicator for the accusative case which only changes for masculine articles. 

To identify the cases you look at the function of the noun in the
sentence. The noun can be the subject, direct object or the indirect object of a
sentence. The person or thing that is doing the action is called the subject of the sentence. The nominative case is always used for the subject of the sentence. The accusative is used for the direct object of a sentence. The direct object is the person, animal or thing that the action of the sentence is happening to. 

Example accusativ:

"Ich trinke einen Kaffee" = "I am drinking a coffe." 

Depending on the function of the verb and the noun cases can change.

Case Nominativ:

Kaffee is the subject of the sentence.

"Der Kaffee ist serviert von mir" = "The coffe is served by me"

Case Accusativ:

"Kaffee" is the direct object that is acted upon by the subject "ich".

"Ich serviere einen Kaffee" = "I am serving a coffe"

To find out more about the accusative case you can look at our indefinite article list in the Language & Culture Lessons, 6.6 A Case in Point -Accusative.

Regards

Paul