Why German says 'mir' where English says 'from me'
In English, you steal something from someone. German usually has no word for that "from". The person who loses something simply goes into the dative case, and the thing that is taken goes into the accusative. So Jemand hat mir das Handy geklaut literally says "Someone stole me the phone", and to a German ear that is exactly how it should sound.
English speakers often reach for von and say something like von mir gestohlen. It is understandable, but it is not the natural way to say it. This pattern applies to verbs of taking and stealing, such as stehlen, klauen, rauben and nehmen. Once you know it, you will hear it everywhere.
The pattern has two objects:
- dative = the person who loses something (mir, dir, ihm, ihr, uns, dem Mann, der Frau)
- accusative = the thing that is taken (das Fahrrad, den Schlüssel, die Tasche)
The rule of thumb is simple. Whenever English says "from + person" after a verb of taking, think of the dative instead. The German sentence has no preposition at all.
Notice the word order. A dative noun or pronoun normally comes before an accusative noun. When the thing is a pronoun as well, the accusative pronoun comes first: Er hat es mir gestohlen (He stole it from me).
German also often uses mir das Fahrrad rather than mir mein Fahrrad. The dative already makes it clear whose bicycle it was, so the plain article is enough.
stehlen is the neutral verb for "to steal". klauen means the same thing but is informal. It is what most people say among friends or family.
rauben means taking something by force, as in a robbery. It is also very common in a figurative sense, when something takes away your sleep, your nerves or your time.
nehmen usually just means "to take". When someone is deprived of something, however, it uses the same dative pattern. This is common with abstract things like hope, fear or a decision.
Other verbs of taking work the same way, for example wegnehmen (to take away), entziehen (to withdraw) and entreißen (to snatch): Sie hat mir das Buch weggenommen.
The most typical mistake is Er hat das Geld von mir gestohlen. Say Er hat mir das Geld gestohlen instead. A phrase with von or aus is fine for places, though: Sie haben Geld aus der Kasse gestohlen (They stole money from the till).
With berauben, the cases are reversed: the person goes into the accusative and the thing into the genitive, as in Man hat ihn seines Geldes beraubt. This is formal and fairly rare. In everyday speech, stick with jemandem etwas rauben, or say jemanden ausrauben (to rob someone).
Ich nehme den Bus has no victim, so it has no dative. The dative only appears when a person is left without something.
With verbs of stealing and taking away, German does not say "from someone". The person who loses something goes into the dative, and the thing taken goes into the accusative: jemandem etwas stehlen, klauen, rauben, nehmen. When you want to say "from me", "from him" or "from her", reach for mir, ihm or ihr, not von.