Until you introduce whom (and, occasionally, whose) and native speakers’ brains explode. It’s soooo easy: Whose brain was exploded by whom? His brain was exploded by her, not He brain was exploded by she. Native English speakers do understand cases, they just don’t know that they understand.
Yup, I’m a native English speaker who teaches German to mostly native English speakers, and it’s always a fun moment when someone in class realizes that we have cases in English, too (don’t worry, I do tell them, if nobody speaks up, I just give them the chance to figure it out themselves first).
This actually makes more sense than the arbitrary grammatical genders. (Sure, english has it simpler with, “from where”, “where” and “where to”)
Until you introduce whom (and, occasionally, whose) and native speakers’ brains explode. It’s soooo easy: Whose brain was exploded by whom? His brain was exploded by her, not He brain was exploded by she. Native English speakers do understand cases, they just don’t know that they understand.
Yup, I’m a native English speaker who teaches German to mostly native English speakers, and it’s always a fun moment when someone in class realizes that we have cases in English, too (don’t worry, I do tell them, if nobody speaks up, I just give them the chance to figure it out themselves first).
Thither and thence/hither and hence/whither and whence are also counterparts to there/here/where, for older and/or more literary English