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Joined: 12 Jun 2014 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: -
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Speaks Polish?: Beginner

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hitnroll   
12 Jun 2014
Language / Usage of Polish 'to' [8]

Hi

Have just started learning Polish using busuu and am very confused by the use of 'to'. One example of my confusions is the following two sentences :

To jest piłka nożna mojego syna

Anna i Maria to przyjaciółki moich sióstr

I understand the first one - This is my son's football. No problems there to=this, jest=is and is the verb in the sentence.

But the usage of to in the second sentence really confuses me as there doesn't appear to be a verb there at all !!!! Why is there no są in the sentence - to is in the place i expected it to say są.

Thanks for any help :-)
hitnroll   
12 Jun 2014
Language / Usage of Polish 'to' [8]

Thanks for the reply. I can see how the dropping of są makes sense.

A follow up question if I may. In a writing exercise I wrote :

Mój zawód jest technologia informacyjna

This was corrected in a couple of ways to :

Mój zawód to technologia informacyjna
or
Moim zawodem jest technologia informacyjna

I don't really understand why 'jest' should be used with the instrumental case for zawód but you use 'to' when using the nominative.
hitnroll   
12 Jun 2014
Language / Usage of Polish 'to' [8]

Thank you for such a comprehensive answer

I have definitely been told that Polish is difficult :-)

So I am trying to approach it by making sure I understand the foundations of cases etc and why they are used in certain situations - probably harder to do but I'm hoping it will be worth it in the long term
hitnroll   
10 Dec 2015
Language / Genitive or accusative? Polish language issue. [12]

I'm using ankiweb to increase vocab and get a better understanding of grammer. One sentence is :

To nie może być nic dobrego

I can't figure out why 'nic dobrego' is used. One thought is that as this is a negative construct then it should be genitive but in that case it would be 'niczego dobrego' ? Or is it still in accusative and we can infer then that what can't be anything good is masc personal or masc inanimate due to it being dobrego and not dobry/dobre/dobrą
hitnroll   
10 Dec 2015
Language / Genitive or accusative? Polish language issue. [12]

Thanks for the reply Lyzko :)

Unfortunately I'm still a little none the wiser about the sentence in my example as to why it says 'nic dobrego' :(

I totally get what you are saying about 'Miłego dnia', 'Smacznego', 'Wesołych Świat' - but in those examples the complete phrase is genitive. In my example shouldn't it be 'niczego dobrego' then if the same applied ?

So that leads me to think this is actually accusative (as you say dobrego can also be accusative) - but I don't understand why it is accusative in a negative construction and also why dobrego is used as opposed to dobry/dobre/dobrą !

Any further clarification greatly received !
hitnroll   
10 Dec 2015
Language / Genitive or accusative? Polish language issue. [12]

I think that is a great explanation Ziemowit.

It seems identical to how you would use dużo + genitive - which is logical when coming from English when you think of genitive as being something of something. eg house of bob (bob's house). So lots of water - dużo wody - is genitive

From what you are saying nic and coś work in the same way as dużo - they take genitive. And in my example it was a genitive adjective. So I just need to remember it as 'nothing of....' or 'something of....' when using nic and coś and use genitive.

Lovely stuff. Bardzo dziękuję :)