Indirect objects

An indirect object is the person to whom or for whom something is done: in "the slave gives water to the master", the master is the indirect object. Latin marks this with the dative case. Once you can spot dative endings, sentences with giving, telling, showing, and handing over fall into place.

The common singular dative endings at A1 are:

Type	Nominative	Dative (to / for)
1st declension	puella (girl)	puellae
2nd declension	dominus (master)	domino
3rd declension	rex (king)	regi

So the pattern is often -ae or -o or -i at the end of the receiving person.

Examples:

• Servus domino aquam dat. = The slave gives water to the master.
• Puella matri rosam dat. = The girl gives a rose to her mother.
• Magister discipulis fabulam narrat. = The teacher tells a story to the pupils.

For English speakers: English usually needs the word "to" or "for", or else fixed word order ("give the master water"). Latin has no separate word here at all: the "to" is baked into the ending. So do not scan for a preposition, and do not assume the noun nearest the verb is the object. In domino aquam dat, domino (dative, receiver) and aquam (accusative, the thing given) are told apart purely by their endings. Read -ae / -o / -i as "to/for someone".