Polish Neuter

It's about time I got my head around the neuter gender (a bit of a scary subject for goats, but actually fairly safe as a grammatical gender). It seems to be the least common gender, but highly essential for day to day life.

Piwo

Need I say more?
Yes. I should ask a question. Or something. Perhaps someone could correct me where I'm wrong, and maybe elaborate slightly.

Numbers:
Jedno piwo, dwa piwa, trzy piwa, cztery piwa, pięć piw...
Is jedno the only one that's different?

Adjectives and stuff:
Smaczne piwo, mocne piwo. To piwo.
Smaczne piwa, mocne piwa. Te piwa. < right or wrong?

Dawaj piwo! Dawaj piwa! < endings endings endings - when will it ever end? I'm sure these ending must be wrong.
Słoń będzie dawać piwo < it's got to be wrong because you can't tell whether the elephant is giving beer or if the beer is giving elephants... and to whom! Therefore there is one very confused goat at a keyboard typing this.

Jedna butelka piwa
Dwie butelke piw < a bit of the Polish feminine side creeping in here!

Only now am I beginning to wish I had started talking about koła instead! Anything a little more neutral for this neuter-themed thread. I'm driving myself to drink.

If the beer starts talking, will it say "Jestem piwem"?

Głowa boli, to dzęki piwwwwwww..... I've now lost the will to go on. I need help (and Alcoholics Anonymous).

Well, most languages make the difference between singular (one) and plural, why wouldn't Polish?


There are some threads about nouns with numbers on these forums, unlike in English (beer - beers) we use 3 forms of the noun (piwo - piwa - piw).


Right.


Dwie butelki piwa (singular, Genetive case, like in English, you'd say "Two bottles of beer" not "Two bottles of beers")


Apparently, they are NOT wrong (if you meant "Give me the beer!" and "Give me the beers!")


It will (would), indeed.


Głowa boli, to od piwa [to przez piwo] (not "dzięki piwu" = thanks to, because you're not thankful for the headache), przez piwo = because of beer, od piwa = (literally) from beer - you've got your headache from the beer :)


No, the beer is giving elephants = piwo będzie dawać słonie [plural, Accusative case] [or słonia - singular, , Accusative case]

osiol?

I mean the numbers. Like in feminine, dwa isn't dwa, it's dwie. Does anything like this happen with neuter?

Thanks for your help. I would offer you jedno piwo, but I had better check everything here first just to make sure I get it right.


I'll send him your regards!

'Jedno' goes with the basic form, 'dwa', 'trzy' 'cztery' with basic plural form, and the rest comes with dopełniacz form of your word in question. Even 12,985.556 (plenty of drinkin' and carousin', eh my heartie ?) would still go with 'piw'.


You're wrong. They're right.


No. There's only a tusked bartender there (although we don't know who is thirsty here). No beer is going to dispense elephants this time.



Yes.
T(w)o beer or not t(w)o beer ?
Arrr, this be a question.

Ed:Does this Krzysztof ever sleep ?

Cheers Bartolome.

Have I missed anything big and important?
Yes.
Oh well. I shall go on then!

I don't think the good old vocative has been done yet. Could this be used to make some kind of speech to a beer? "Oh beer! You are so delicious you turn me into a psycho who will both love you and murder you!"

I suppose insulting someone by calling them a child (dziecko) would be more likely. Does this word change? I know dziecko is slighty irregular in the plural. Is it an otherwise regular neuter noun?


Dzięki smacznego(?) piwu.

let it R.I.P., no need to bother with vocative (it would be the last thing on my learn-to-list, if I were a foreigner), you can safely use nominative instead, because vocative is almost extinct among most speakers.


(right)
Możesz mi postawić jedno piwo albo trzy [piwa].


Dzięki smacznemu piwu. (Dative case, singular)


Generally, those numbers behave like adjectives, so different endings dipending on the gender of the noun (and special endings in plural for masculine human nouns):

(masc.) jeden mały stół, chłopiec
(neut.) jedno małe piwo
(fem.) jedna mała ławka

dwa/trzy/cztery małe stoły, dwaj/trzej/czterej mali chłopcy (or dwóch/trzech/czterech małych chłopców)
dwa/trzy/cztery małe piwa
dwie/trzy/cztery małe ławki

pięć (and more) małych stołów, pięciu małych chłopców
pięć małych piw
pięć małych ławek

EDIT:


Yes, it is regular in singular forms, but you can find some misleading forms, because it's also often appearing in a colloquial form of dzieciak (masculine gender) like some of other neuter nouns, especially indicating young animals (first is neut. - second is masc.: prosię - prosiak, kurczę - kurczak, ptaszę - ptaszek, źrebię - źrebak, cielę - cielak etc.).

There's also an already archaic form of dziecię.

Nice trzy... I mean nice try!