Well, I'm a beginner - we have barely started to touch on the case but I've been reviewing "English Grammar for Students of Russian". I think, for the English speaker, it's simply hard to understand the role that case plays in Russian.

I know from looking at page 16, that the dative case is for indirect objects and objects of some (but not all??) prepositions. Why do I have to do it this way? When am I supposed to use this? How do I know that I'm referring to an indirect object and not a direct object? I guess these are some of the questions that beginners face up to.

From looking over contemporary textbooks, especially those at the college level, it seems that they throw the cases at you right from the beginning.