Difference between "und du?" and "und dir?"

Hallo! I've been listening to the audio lessons and in the very first one it says "und dir?" meaning "and you?" but I've listened to a later lesson and it mentions "und du?" with the same translation of "and you?" What is the difference between the two exactly? Danke Sam

As in English, German pronouns take a different form depending on case. "du" is the form for the nominative case and "dir" the form for the dative case (indirect object). Lesson 6.5 in the Language and Culture section explains it.

Hi Sam, You mentioned going through the audio lessons. Is it 'Und dir?' in the testing section in the introduction you are referring to which is translated as 'and you'. The conversation from the lesson goes something like: 'Wie geht es dir?' "How are you?' 'Gut, und dir?' 'Good and you?' The verb 'gehen' is 'to be going; to be alright'. 'Du' und 'dir' means 'you' but it depends on the verb and case which one will be used. Also 'Dir' is the reflexive form of 'du' like 'ich' is of 'mir'. Reflexive means that a verb's subject 'du' is the same person as that verb's object 'dir'. The object is therefore the "reflection" of the subject. In English reflexive pronouns are often left out which is not the case in German. Examples: 'Ich wasche mir die Haende'. -> 'I am washing my hands'. 'Ich wasche mich.' -> 'I am washing myself'.

Hi Sam, It merely depends on the situation. In the phrase "Und dir", Dir is the object of the action. It reflects the previous topic, where as in English, we would say "And you?" rather than "And how are you in regards to our previous topic."

Each answer is marked " report as spam" Are these indeed spam and if so where is the correct RG answer? KK

Keith, I doubt that "report as spam" means that the messages ARE spam, but rather than you can report it as spam if you suspect that it is spam.

Hello, thank you to Jakob, Byron and of course Paul who has been excellent throughout the audio course. Thank you for explaining, I'm slowly starting to grasp the basic grammatical differences, and you've really set the ball rolling for me to learn the language! Apologies for the extremely slow reply, thank you for doing so. Sam

I've always had trouble with grammar, even in English. It's kind of like music. I can't read music but I play. It's all in the ear as to what sounds correct or incorrect. I believe that is so in speaking also. I taught report writing in the Police Academy and had no problem because in my youth I learned to speak correctly, but as to what is genitive, nominative, and dative is still a mystery to me. I do know nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs, but as to the rest... .

German grammar is very complicated, no doubt about it. I suppose if you learned to speak with people who use the proper grammar, you would get it without thinking about it, just like learning when to use "I" versus "me" in sentences from educated people. Unfortunately, so many people today, even professional news media people make common grammatical mistakes. Some people have been conditioned to think it's a mistake to use "me" in a sentence with a compound object as in Bob and me, but if it's truly an object as in "he talked to Bob and me" then me is correct. Kind of a digression. I guess my point is English grammar is not easy, but German grammar is much more complicated.

Byron, The way I learned it was, for instance in using your example; "he talked with Bob and me." If you take Bob away, it is correct to say, "He talked with me." However, if you say, "He talked with Bob and I" and take Bob away, it ends up as "He talked with I" which is incorrect and also somewhat harsh to the ear.

Yup, that's the way I learned it too. Surprisingly a lot of people didn't, just like people who carefully say "Just between you and I" thinking they are being ever so correct when in fact between is a preposition and the objective pronoun should be used.

Preposition and the objective pronoun... Uh, right! LOL

I don't mean to sound like a grammar snob either. It really doesn't bother me when people use incorrect grammar, except when some people, who smugly think they are better educated than most of us, make mistakes like the example above. You'll see TV personalities do it all the time.

It really does help, when learning and speaking about grammar, to know the names of the parts of speech. It isn't that hard and only takes a few extra minutes of research to learn a valuable skill. You are not a "grammar snob" at all Byron, and I'm sure we all appreciate your valuable input!

Thank you for the kind words.