mój - moja

Witaj!
Please help.
I know that the word kolega is muscular. But it ends with a; so when I say my friend, ought to use mój kolega or moja kolega?

I know this is a stupid question but I am really at the beginning of my Polish studies.

Thank you in advance!

Muscular? You mean masculine. ;)

Male gender nouns always require male gender adjectives regardless of ending, so it must be "mój kolega" and not "moja kolega".

This form is correct and you should treat it precisely as the former poster said. A feminine example would be: "moja koleżanka" (my (girl)friend)...

Another thing is that "kolega/koleżanka" is a colleague.
And a friend is "przyjaciel/przyjaciółka" :)

As I understood it kolega/koleżanka z pracy = colleague and that just kolega/koleżanka is usually just friend, although not as close friend as przyjaciel/przyjaciółka. Is this wrong?

Derevon

You're 100% correct

Few masculine nouns end in -a, so they are exceptions to the rule which says that masculine nouns normally end in a consonant.

Mój dentysta, mój kierowca itd. There are quite a few masculine nouns that end in A. It is confusing but so are English exceptions for non-natives.

But be aware of the noun kolega in the dative case, here it will be declined as if it was a feminine gender noun (koledze). But the adjective will be declined as a masculine adjective.

My friend/colleague in dative case = mojemu (masc) koledze (fem)

Summary: Kolega will be declined as a masculine noun in all cases, except dative where it takes feminine noun ending. But any adjective associated with kolega will have masculine ending in the dative case.

Would it be too much of an oversimplification to say that nouns are generally declined according to their endings rather than their gender?

I mean we have for example dłoną (dłoń = female) but słoniem (słoń = male) in the singular instrumental.

In many cases this will create problems.

Kolega is declined (in most cases) as a masculine noun. But if you decline according to ending, it looks like feminine gender and it will be wrong.

Noc is a feminine noun. But if you decline according to ending, it looks like masculine gender and it will be wrong.

Miłość is a feminine noun. But if you decline according to ending, it looks like masculine gender and it will be wrong.

I think we make it more difficult than it really is. Do it as usual, and it will be correct, we only have to learn a few exceptions.

My mistake. I meant declining nouns according to the gender regardless of ending.

Of course this is the best. But first you must figure out what gender it is. And we usually do that by looking at the endings. So indirect we use endings to decline nouns anyway. But you are right.

I'm glad there are so few words that have irregular gender in Polish. Does anyone have any figures on this? To me it seems that only around 1% of all nouns are of unpredictable gender.

satelita, zapowiedź, odpowiedź, wypowiedź, spowiedź, wilgoć, kolej, sól, gałąź, podróż, jesień, dobroć, wesz, krew, twarz, pościel, myśl, gęś, łódź, dłoń, pomoc, noc, Cerkiew, więź, mysz, nić, odzież, sprzedaż, wyprzedaż.

Those are the one's I have encountered so far that I have recorded in my vocabulary program. It might be that I've missed to mark some of the nouns in my list as female, but I'm not really sure.

Thats 29/3638 words. It's something like 0.8%, although I'm sure I must have forgotten to mark some words correctly.

Well, by unpredictable I mean a noun whose gender is unpredictable according to any of the following rules:

Male: All words ending in a consonant and words ending in "-a" that represent for example male occupations and similar, or male persons of some kind

Neuter: Words ending in "-o", "-e" and "-ę" and Latin-cognates ending in "-um", e.g. muzeum

Female: Words ending in "-a" which don't represent male occupations etc, and words ending in "-ość"

If somebody can think of some more irregular nouns, especially common ones, that I've missed, feel free to let me know. ;)

Thank you all very much! This forum always gives me more than I can expect. xD

We had a test last week in the university and I was very nervous I wasn't sure if I had written the correct form. But now I'm sure I was correct. :-)

Not only -ość but just -ść, as well as -szcz (but where are some exceptions to this exception though ;-) ) Also sometimes similar endings, like -dź, -ź, -cz, -źń, -ć

female: wieść, pięść, część, złość, radość, boleść, kiść, wieść, powieść, piędź, więź, Bydgoszcz, Radogoszcz, zdobycz, słodycz, jaźń, bojaźń, rtęć, etc.

but:
male: chrząszcz, chrabąszcz, liść,

That's hard to remember, things like ta część as being feminine. It takes a bit of getting used to.

cinek

Thanks. After some consideration I would say that the -ść-rule is correct. Basically all nouns that end in -ść which don't describe any person who is by definition a male (e.g. teść) are female, the only exception I've found so far is the one you provided, liść.

As for the other ones, they vary too much to be useful as rules. Most words ending in -szcz in my list are male: gąszcz, chrząszcz, dreszcz, barszcz, deszcz. There are also many male words ending in -dź: gwóźdź, niedźwiedź, łabędź, śledź.

Well, it's a good rule anyway to confirm the gender of all nouns ending in -ń, -ć, -dź, -ść, -ź and -cz when looking them up in a dictionary.

I think the majority of -ść words are feminine actually. First I thought only miłość was feminine as an exception. But most are.

I think so too as I saw patterns emerging. I've slowly gotten to grips with it.

The -ść = female rule is kind of watertight. The only non-personal male exception I've encountered is "liść" as cinek mentioned.

false. it can be a regular friend, and usually is.

it's not false... it's one of the options... colleague/regular friend...

I wasn't saying that the statement was false I was saying his implication that kolega is not a friend but a colleague is false.

But now that I think of it his statement is false as well. If you don't like your colleague you would not say kolega, thus meaning that kolega does not mean colleague, but a person whom you are friendly with. A colleague CAN be your kolega, but not necessarily.

koleżanka z pracy would be a colleague... or maybe współpracownica as a co-worker...?

yea it would be kolezanka if you were on friendly terms with her. If you didn't like her then that word would not be used.

kolega is masculine not feminine so it is mój kolega only beware in the plural form such as moi koledzy and ku moim kolegom ect. Moja koleżanka is also correct if feminine and the plural would be moje koleżanki-just like any normal feminine noun.

I just found another two: 'gość' and (the city of) 'Brześć'.
There's also 'jegomość', but the rule of the game was 'not male by definition', while 'jegomość' is male ;-) (the female equivalent would be 'jejmość').

Are there more?

Cinek

I think this discussion is even worthy of its own thread, so I will start a new one. (I have some updated rules).