Example sentences for different cases.

Are there many nouns that decline like adjectives in Polish? If so how would you know that it declines like that?

thanks

IINM "w Zakopanem" is a frozen form from when the locative masculine/neuter adjective ending was -em instead of -ym (there was some back and forth for a while before -ym won out in the standard).

In fact, the current -ym ending for instrumental and locative is weird in that I'm pretty sure most other Slavic languages have -em (or -om).

Yes, nut words such as Katowice with the gentative plural Katowic is a different situation.

Don't try to count them, just try to distinguish one from the other: -y is a typical ending of masculine adjectives in Polish, so it follows adjective's declension pattern even though it is a noun.

It works the same way for many others. e.g.:

woźny, oddźwierny, koniuszy, leśniczy, etc.

As and exercise you can try write all przypadki of them ;-)

Cinek

Yes, Michał. You're right about that-:) My analogy may have been a bit off. LOL

Hal, in neither instance is action being "done" to 'the woman'. It's simply that in Polish when a substantive (noun) is being described, normally the Instumental is used, as compared with the Nominative. It's really all feel for the language, although native Poles have told me that if the phrase is "Ona dobra kobieta." without "jest" between "Ona" and "dobra", both the adjective "dobra" and the noun "kobieta" stand in the Nominative. It means "She is a good woman.", but is only colloquial usage!

Standard Polish is: "Ona jest dobrą kobietą." in the Instrumental, without any hesitation.
Polish uses the Instrumental before nationalities as well as professions.

"Jestem Niemcem/Polakiem." = I am German/Polish etc...
"Jan jest lekatzem."/"Hanna jest nauczycielką." = Jack is a doctor./Hannah's a teacher.

Misspelling "lekarzem"!!

Merged: kran becomes kranu, herbata becomes herbatę

why did kran become kranu? Is it locative or something else?
this is part of the sentance, wody z kranu.

Another question:
Mieszamy herbatę.
Why did herbata or herbaty become herbatę? What is the grammatical term for this?
Was it herbata or herbaty before it became herbatę?

Thanks

Ever heard of cases?

Yes I have heard of cases.

Nominative
Genitive
Locative etc.

Can you tell me which one it is?

And why kolory doesn't change in "Mieszamy kolory".

Thanks

mieszamy requires 'accusative' (biernik) - and accusative of kolory (which is a plural of a masculine noun) happens to have the same form as 'basic' - 'nominative' form of the noun - this is for all nouns in plural actually - except a class which is called 'personal masculine' (personal masculine is for example names of occupations/professions/positions held by males - Polish distinguishes robotnik from robotnica, lekkoatleta from lekkoatletka - the former are masculine the latter feminine (robotnik - worker/labourer, robotnica - femala worker, pracownik - employee, pracownica - female emloyee)

ci pracownicy - these employees te pracownice - these female employees
widzę tych pracowników - I can see these employees
widzę te pracownice - I cans see these female employees

(widzę requires accusative case just as mieszam(y) does - you can see that for "pracownicy", a masculine personal, accusative does not have the same form as the 'nominative' (basic form) (but accusative is equal to genetive in this class)

in general youprobably already noticed that Polish declination system is pretty irregular (unlike Hungarian as far as I know - though maybe there are languages with even more irregularities to their declination)

aha

now prepositions - 'z' is preposition in Polish require specific cases as well

'z' is a bit problematic here because it actually has at least 2 basic meanings

the first is 'z' = 'with' and it requires 'instrumental' - it is often described as a question - z kim/ z czym? with whom/ with what?

the other meaning of 'z' is - out of, from (sometimes off) - this is the case here - z kranu - from the/a tap (out of the/a tap) - this one requires 'genetive' kran, z czego? - z kranu?

Herbata is the nominative case (singular).
Herbatę is the accusative case (singular).
Herbaty is the genitive case (singular).

Herbaty is also the nominative and accusative cases in plural.

Mieszamy herbatę is in this way because herbatę is the direct object of the sentence. I guess you know what direct object means. And the direct object always requires the accusative case.


No, in this case it's not the locative case. After the preposition z (if you mean from something) you should use the genitive case. Genitive of kran in kranu.

(If you use the prep. z in the meaning "with someone/something" you should use the instrumental case.)

Oh, now I saw that gumishu already wrote some of this.

Hi all,

Thanks for your help. I must look this stuff up and I will come back to you if I have any problems.

Thanks