Both verbs can express liking, but their subjects and objects are arranged differently.

der Film
die Kollegin
die Wohnung
das Essen
die Farbe
der Stoff

The idea

With mögen, the person is nominative and the liked thing is accusative. With gefallen, the thing is nominative and the person is dative: Ich mag den Film; Der Film gefällt mir.

Patterns to compare
Form / MusterBeispiel / Gegensatz
mögenIch mag den Film.
gefallenDer Film gefällt mir.
Personich / mir
Sacheden Film / der Film

Examples

  • Ich mag diesen Film.
  • Dieser Film gefällt mir.
  • Sie mag ihre neue Kollegin.
  • Die neue Wohnung gefällt ihr.
  • Wir mögen scharfes Essen.
  • Die Farbe gefällt uns, aber wir mögen den Stoff nicht.

Read-aloud uses a synthetic German voice available on your device. Voice quality and availability vary; it does not assess your pronunciation.

Watch out

Switch the grammatical roles when changing patterns: Ich mag den Film becomes Der Film gefällt mir. Keep the person nominative with mögen and dative with gefallen.

Try it yourself

  1. ___ mag dieses Lied. (Ich / Mir)

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    Ich

    Answer: “Ich”. This element is the subject or its nominative description.

  2. Das Lied gefällt ___. (ich / mir)

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    mir

    Answer: “mir”. This complement is dative; its article, pronoun or adjective must show that case.

  3. Ich mag ___ Mantel. (der / den)

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    den

    Answer: “den”. This complement is accusative; choose its article or pronoun in that case.

Use it today

Use “Ich mag diesen Film.” as a model. Replace the noun phrase with two new people or objects, then explain which case each replacement needs.