Polish Case System

Howdely doodely,

I realize I may be asking the impossible, but could somebody either post a link to, or else a breakdown of the polish case system.

I have many books and there is no 1 resource where the whole system is summed up into a diagram. My girlfriend gets annoyed whenever I ask her even a word in polish so I know she won't teach it to me, she may help me to understand if I have some diagram to follow however.

Appreciate any help

Well, I can try.
masculine sing. masc. pl. (table)

Nom. stól stoly
Gen. stolu stolów
Dat. stolu stolom
Akk. stól stoly
Lok. stole stolach
Instr. stolem stolami
Vok. stól! stoly

feminine sing. (book) feminine pl.

Nom. ksiazka ksiazki
Gen. ksiazki ksiazek
Dat. ksiazce ksiazkom
Akk. ksiazke ksiazki
Lok. ksiazce ksiazkach
Instr. ksiazka ksiazkami
Vok. ksiazko! ksiazki

neuter sing. (state, Mr. & Mrs.)

Nom. panstwo panstwa
Gen. panstwa panstw
Dat. panstwu panstwom
Akk. panstwo panstwo
Lok. panstwu panstwach
Instr. panstwem panstwami
Vok. panstwo! panstwo

This is merely a mmost random sampler of only a very few common nouns. A full list of the others (including the exceptions to the exceptions???!!)

Until another post!

Marek

The plurals never appeared!!!
Sorry. Must be my pc.

M.

thats exactly the kind of thing I was looking for,

fantastic, dziekuje bardzo

Prosze bardzo! Your welcome, DannyBoy.
Again, it is BY NO MEANS complete. It should though give you a slight intro. Don't blame your girlfriend for being recalcitrant, by the way.

In college, I knew a Hungarian coed while I was teaching myself some of that language. Although she and I were friends (not romantically involved at the time, however!), she consistently balked at attempts to answer my sundry questions. Sometimes native speakers feel embarrassed by their own lack of non knowledge.

I didn't included adjectives in the chart. Below's only a brief taste: masc. "maly stól" (small table)

N maly stól male stoly
G malego stolu malych stolów
D malemu stolu malym stolom
A maly stól maly stoly
L malym stole malych stolach
I malym stolem malymi stolami
V maly stól male stoly

To be continued, I'm sure!

Marek

Hi again, DannyBoy!

Regrettably, I have no Polish ligatures/key signs on my keypad, that can be fatal in terms of reproducing Polish words accurately :)

My "list" (for lack of a better word!) did not even begin to include the confusing masculine nouns, e.g. "mezczyzna", "kolega" etc...., with feminine "a"-endings but masculine declensions!!

For another time.
Marek

Hi Dannyboy,

It's nearly a year ago now that you requested some help with cases - but I've just seen it, so anyway, you might find my new blog useful. It's only just started, but I intend to develop it as a generally available resource as I stumble along learning Polish :-)

Anyway, you can find it by googling 'learn polish with bilus blogspot' (I wasn't allowed to post the url here) - and I'd love to hear from you or anybody else who's learning or helping people to learn and might have some great ideas to share!

Cheers, Biluś

OK, I know. It was year ago, but please.

Nom. stól stoły
Gen. stołu stołów
Dat. stołowi stołom (stołowi a nie stołu O.o)
Akk. stół stoły
Lok. stołem, stołami
Instr. stole, stołach
Vok. stole! stoły

People, think before write. Maybe, I didn't write correctly, but Mark made amazing mistakes :|

Everybody on this forum makes mistakes and that is how we learn. However, ja dojdę do stołu albo ja idę ku stołowi does indeed seem better Polish.

Michal, I know. And I make mistakes too. But, if you want help someone, you have to (or just should) be sure. Does it any sense, if you give someone something wrong?

Michał,

I remember hearing from Polish speakers at various consulary functions: "Prośimy Państwa! Prośimy gości do stołu!"

Presumably, they were speaking correct Polish. Far be it from, at best an advanced intermediate non-native such as myself, to correct a native speaker's Polish.

That sounds like weird Polish. Both are grammatically correct. Neither has any significant use in everyday Polish. "Ku" in general is falling out of grace. It is used mostly by the older generations of Poles, and those younger Polish speakers who live abroad and know Polish from their grandparents.

The natural collocations here would be:

- podejść do stołu
- przyjść do stołu

Marek's suggestions are also correct and frequent.

Thread attached on merging:
Polish Case and Case use?

I took an interest in teaching myself Polish for around 2 months now.. I know the Alphabet and how to pronounce things dicently correct. But there is just one thing that seems to be bothering me a little bit. The Cases.

I know there are 7 Polish Grammar Cases

Nominative, Genetive, Accusative, Dative, Instrumental, Locative, Vocative

It just makes me wonder, how do you use each case?
I attempted ALOT of research on Google. But no luck.

Check out this site:

polish.slavic.pitt.edu/

Merged: Learning about the different cases

The different cases are a very important and fundamental part of the Polish language, and probably the main reason why it's so difficult to learn. I have yet to find any resources on the different cases that didn't over-intellectualize the whole thing to the point of obscurity and impracticality. I.e. They would tell me the name of the various cases, spelling, show me examples of when it's used, but rarely would they just simply tell me what it's for. "This is case X, and it is used for... You can use it like this... etc." would be nice. I feel the intellectual approach to learning Polish (or any) language is ineffective, and really takes away from any practicality that might be learned.

So, basically, does anyone know of any practical and thorough resources on the various cases?

It helps a bit if you've some background with other case-driven languages such as German, with four cases-:)

Essentially, the seven-odd case system in Polish is rather involved and the only book for English speakers which does a half-way decent job in explaining it is Dana Bielec's "Polish: An Essential Grammar", published by Routledge in the late 90's. There's off course "Reference Grammar of Polish by (??) Brooks, but that's a really weighty tome and a little much for a rank beginner!

Try the former and let us know what you think.
)))))

Marek

OK, thanks for the recommendation.

You may also wish to consult a frighteningly extensive online Polish grammar by Grzegorz Jagodziński, detailing in excruciating detail the complete verb conjugations and case morphology which could easily download into almost over a hundred pages-:)

Try searching under the author's given or his complete name using various combinations.

The names of cases in Polish or English (these are derived from Latin) will often tell you what the given case is for. For example, the name dopełniacz (genetive, but a more appropriate translation from Polish would be: complimentive) which answers the question kogo? czego? tells you that it conveys an idea that something is missing. Thus it is frequently used in the negative which most often expresses lack of something: Nie ma dzisiaj [kogo? czego?] ładnej pogody.

The instrumental (narzędnik) shows the thing is used as an instrument or a way of doing something: Jem zupę [kim? czym?] łyżką, a drugie danie jem [kim? czym?] nożem i widelcem. Oddly enough, certain prepositions used for describing places require the instrumental rather than the locative (miejscownik), as you might have expected. Thus, you say: leżę [instrumental] pod łóżkiem, while you will use the locative when stating a much more obvious behaviour: leżę na łóżku or leżę w łóżku. This - in my view - is because in the eyes of our very distant ancestors, the preposition "pod" + [place] expressed a way of doing something rather than indicating the place itself.

Anyway, these remarks are nothing more than my personal impressions on Polish cases, but I hope they may facilitate remembering the use of cases.

en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases

But honestly speaking, it's very difficult to learn how to use the different cases if you don't know the basic grammatical structures.

Merged: An insight into understanding the Polish case system!

Hejo,

How's everyone going? I've been very busy of late but I've been working on something designed to give learners of Polish an insight into understanding the Polish case system! :D

Believe me it's quite a challenge! I could really do with someone to help me by reviewing it and seeing if they think it is ready for posting onto Polish forums!

It's a combination of some ideas taken from other website which were then mixed together and watered down (or in some cases beefed up) and made easier for me (therefore you!) to understand.

I should be done with this by the end of next week but if anyone is interested in reviewing this please can you PM me your email address :) I could do with some Poles and English perspectives on this so I am sure it makes as much sense as possible and then if it works I will ask the mods to make it a sticky!

I hope for this to be a great help to people who are confused by cases like I was (and still am a little bit :P).

dzięki

Sounds interesting! Just put a sample of your work onto the PF and we'll see if it's going to be a breakthrough in understanding the Polish case systems.

What is a Polish case system?

How long have you been learning Polish?

Sorry I thought you were talking about Polish Casework and reports, of which I was curious, you are obviously talking about the grammatics of the language.

Polish cases, wow, what a topic to choose. I have many shortcomings when it comes to them.

What cases are you not comfortable with, Lefty?

The one and only place to learn Polish - from starter work to advance is Live Mocha.com
I discovered it a couple of weeks ago and wish I had known about it for the last year while I have been learning.

I'm trying and hoping I can get something sorted... It will just be a base guide though and nothing comprehensive!

I'm sure it will be nothing you don't know already!


The only ones I know so far are Nominative and Instrumental because my teach won't let me overload myself and we have to stick to my workbook!


It's a good site but I find myself getting sidetracked with correcting other peoples English :) I don't think you can replace the teacher though.

I wouldn't be so sure. It might strike you as odd but I've never really studied Polish grammar to any appreciable extent. I've picked up 90% of what I know from listening alone.

The instrumental is a nice one to learn. There is some kind of regularity to the rules which is good.

I often think about this and if I just moved to Poland would that be the better option? I don't know maybe I'm doing the right thing maybe I'm not.


I have a feeling that my teacher hasn't told me everything there is to do with it though but that's fine I feel like I know something and it's an inspiration to keep learning :D

It really boils down to how you learn. Many teachers intentionally withhold information. Times have changed and we have the tools necessary for effective self study. I don't baby my students and I sure as hell don't encourage laziness. Some people here expect a magic wand which, simply put, they are not going to get from me. I give them the building blocks without giving out too much.

Any of you folks find that Poles will correct your Polish mistakes, that is, notice case confusions, and tell you what you've done wrong? Or is it more like here in the US, where people are usually so glad a foreigner speaks their language that they don't bother to say anything?

Just curious)))