Language / CONJUGATION OF CHLAĆ - CHLAM, CHLEJĘ or BOTH? [7]

I have google-tested the present tense forms. Just for fun.
I only used the Polish language site searching and put the words in quotation marks.

Sg1 chlam 20900 / chleję 18700
Sg2 chlasz 1440 / chlejesz 2990
Sg3 chla 34900 / chleje 20900
Pl1 chlamy 2440 / chlejemy 3270
Pl2 chlacie 306 / chlejecie 14400
Pl3 chlają 2940 / chleją 14800

Total: 62926 / 75060

Considering the total numbers it makes 46% against 54%. Not a great difference one may say.

Language / CONJUGATION OF CHLAĆ - CHLAM, CHLEJĘ or BOTH? [7]


And both are correct.

Inf. chlać
Sg1 chlam/chleję
Sg2 chlasz/chlejesz
Sg3 chla/chleje
Pl1 chlamy/chlejemy
Pl2 chlacie/chlejecie
Pl3 chlają/chleją

Language / Masculine Accusitive / Genitive - fruit, vegetables... [7]

Every grammar book says that the verb jeść governs the accusative case, e.g. Jem (kogo? co?) gruszkę/zupę/cebulę.

The problem here is that the accusative form of masculine nouns does not have its own ending. It equals either the genetive or the nominative.

There are ANIMATE nouns like człowiek, strażak, Murzyn, Chińczyk, koń, pies. They all have Acc.Sg. = Gen.Sg. (E.g. Widzę człowieka/Murzyna/konia.)

There are also INANIMATE nouns like stół, młotek, kamień, drzewo. They have Acc.Sg. = Nom.Sg. (E.g. Widzę stół/kamień/drzewo.)

Unfortunately there is a large group of nouns that are inanimate by the meaning but decline like animate nouns. The most frequent examples of these are: names of dances (walc, mazurek), names of money (dolar, rubel), names of cars, cigarettes, alcohols (mercedes, opel, pilzner). They have Acc.Sg. = Gen.Sg. (E.g. Tańczę walca. Mam dolara. Kupiłem mercedesa. Wypiłem pilznera.)

The problem is even bigger that as the language changes there are more and more nouns that fall into the third group. Sometimes both forms are correct but in many cases the Acc. = Nom. form is preferred in formal and careful language. Besides exceptions are numerous - this is Polish :)

If an adjective is used it should be in the same case like the noun:
Nom.Sg. wysoki człowiek, twardy kamień
Gen.Sg. wysokiego człowieka, twardego kamienia
Acc.Sg. wysokiego człowieka, twardy kamień

Language / Declension of "-ość" - miłość / zieleń [19]

Thank you cinek and Ziemowit. Two more people speaking Polish here :)

Language / Declension of "-ość" - miłość / zieleń [19]

I perfectly know that "correct books" simply follow what people do - languages change and there is nothing we can do about this.

But the question was "How to decline the word zieleń?", not "How the word zieleń will be declined in 75 years?".

Language / Declension of "-ość" - miłość / zieleń [19]

Another proof of my not being normal :)

(At least I read dictionaries that tell me how to speak Polish without inventing words like "zielenio").

Language / Declension of "-ość" - miłość / zieleń [19]


Any examples? :)

For feminine nouns it should go:

NomSg -a
VocSg -o
(e.g. książka, książko; dziewczyna, dziewczyno)

NomSg -(no ending, just a root)
VocSg -i/-y
(e.g. zieleń, zieleni; radość, radości; moc, mocy)

Language / Declension of "-ość" - miłość / zieleń [19]

The vocative case should be zieleni.
Compare radość and radości in the quotation "O radości, iskro bogów".
Besides Jan Tokarski's declension tables say so.

Language / What is this type of word called and others like it? uwydatniając [14]

uwydatniając = contemporary adverbial participle of the verb uwydatniać.
This participle is called in Polish imiesłów przysłówkowy współczesny.

Language / Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases [178]

"chew-mek" may be better, "mek" rhyming with "trek" or "deck".

Language / VERB GENDER OF ABBREVIATIONS PZPR, PiS, PZU, PKO &C. [4]

"PZU" stand for "Państwowy Zakład Ubezpieczeń" and verbs should be ruled by the main word of this abbreviation which is "zakład": "zakład kupił" and "PZU kupił".

"PZPR" stands for "Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza". The main word here is "partia", so we have "partia była" and "PZPR była".

Sometimes there is no evident main word, e.g. "PiS" (I would not say "PiS głosowały" just because there are two main words and verb should be plural) or "NATO" (here I do not know how to match an english noun with polish verb). But you can help yourself by adding such a word and say "partia PiS głosowała" or "pakt/sojusz NATO ogłosił". You can be sure then that you will not make a mistake.

Language / Polish Present Tense - Please Help Me. [8]

inf. poznać
Sg1 poznam
Sg2 poznasz
Sg3 pozna

inf. poznawać
Sg1 poznaję
Sg2 poznajesz
Sg3 poznaje

"poznać" has perfective aspect, so it denotes the future tense.
"poznawać" has imperfective aspect and denotes the present tense.

The meaning of both is the same.

Language / Prepositions in the Polish language. [16]


This one is correct: "Szkoła kończy się w czerwcu."