Verb 'gehören' (to belong to, + dative)

The verb gehören means "to belong to" and takes a dative object: the owner stands in the dative. Ask Wem? ("to whom?") to find it.

Examples:

• Das Auto gehört meinem Bruder. - The car belongs to my brother. (meinem = dative)
• Das Buch gehört mir. - The book belongs to me / is mine.
• Wem gehört diese Tasche? - Whose bag is this?

This is a very natural way to express ownership in German, often where English would say "is mine/yours": Das gehört dir. - That's yours.

Common mistakes: Use the dative for the owner, not the accusative or a possessive structure: Das Auto gehört mir, not Das Auto gehört mich. Note the related but different gehören zu ("to be part of"), which also takes the dative but means belonging to a group: Er gehört zu meiner Familie.

'gehören' (to belong to) takes a dative object.

The owner is in the dative (wem?): Das gehört mir.

'gehören' steht mit dem Dativ.