Polish Accusative Pronouns - Plural

I have been studying accusative pronouns, and for the most part they are pretty straightforward.
However, I came across "Oni" and "One" which correspond to "they" (masculine/ masculine & feminine) and "they" (feminine only)

I was wondering, does this apply just to people? If I have a feminine plural object in the accusative, do I use oni or one?

Ex. "Kanapki, kocham oni!" Or perhaps, "Kanapki, kocham one!"?

I'm Polish, I don't know the precise grammar terms for everything especially in english. In Polish, I think they're called "rodzaj męskoosobowy" and "rodzaj niemęskoosobowy". In Polish, plural distinguishes between male and non-male. "It" ("to", "ono") gender has no plural form.

"Oni" and "One" are generally associated with persons, yes. But there are exceptions.

These are valid sentences:

"Na stole leżą książki. One są ciekawe." (Książka - book - is of feminine gender)
"Pod stołem leżą koty. One są znudzone." (kot - cat - is of male gender, and because they're not considered persons "one" is used!

For persons, it would be:

"Dwie laski stoją pod oknem. One się kłócą." (Two chicks are standing below (the) window. They're arguing.)
"Dwaj mężczyźni czekają na zewnątrz. Oni palą papierosy. (Two men are standing outside. They're smoking cigarettes.)

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Your sentences are wrong! It should be:
"Kanapki, kocham je!" (for items and animals of any gender). But this sounds artificial, most people would exclaim "Kocham kanapki!".
"Muzułmanie, kocham ich!" - (Muslims, I love them!)
"Muzułmanki, kocham je!" - ((female) Muslims, I love them!)

Hmm, I don't envy you. It makes me wonder how I learned this. Brute force memorization and repetition, I guess.

"To" is a very special pronoun, used in a different way, and sometimes replacing not the noun, but the verb "to be". I have tried to explain it today (or rather, already, yesterday, at least taking into account the Polish time) in another thread.

But you explained it really well :)


I would say here "uwielbiam" rather than "kocham". "Kocham" is restricted rather to people, like you love your girlfriend/boyfrend, wife/husband, parents; maybe also for places, but not for common things like sandwiches. When you "kochasz" something, it has a really special meaning for you and it is somehow only.

So:
- Uwielbiam kanapki!
- Uwielbiam muzułmanki! (I understand that muslims sometimes have more than one wife, but it's rather not so that someone feels love to all the muslim women...)

Yes, I found this out some years ago when I said more or less the same thing about a friends' cakes!
A very good example of the differences between languages.

undefinedIf you want to say that something to eat tastes you, the most proper verb is "lubię". One of its meanings is exactly "it is tasty", on the contrary to "kocham" or "uwielbiam".

You say:
> Lubię to ciasto.
or:
> To ciasto mi smakuje. = literally: This cake tastes good for me.
if you want to make it stronger, you can say
> Naprawdę lubię to ciasto. = I really like this cake.
or:
> To ciasto naprawdę mi smakuje.
or:
> Bardzo lubię to ciasto. (it's a bit weaker)
or:
> To ciasto bardzo mi smakuje.
or, in another way:
> To ciasto jest bardzo smaczne. = This cake is very tasty.

Ciasto is, of course, a general word for a cake or a pie (what's the difference between a cake or a pie in English?), but when you mean a birthday or a wedding cake, it's called "tort".

Changing "lubię" to "kocham" or "uwielbiam" is not a very good idea. I mean, it will be understood (especially with "uwielbiam"), but it loses this special meaning that it has a taste that you likes, it begins to mean that you likes it generally, not necessarily in terms of its flavour (also how it looks like and so on).

By the way, does the English word dairy include eggs? Because the Polish equivalent "nabiał" means milk, all the food products made of milk (like cheese, cream, yoghurt etc.), but also eggs.

Of course, "tort" is also a type of "ciasto", but it's so special, that you almost never call it "ciasto". For other kinds of "ciasto", say, "sernik" (cheesecake), "makowiec" (rolled cake with poppy) or "babka" (a high, round cake with a big hole in the middle), you can also say "ciasto" interchangeably, but for "tort" - you will be understood saying "ciasto", but it's rarely done so.

Thanks for all the information kpc21!


Pies can be sweet or savoury in England.
They have fillings such as steak and kidney, or apple!
What we call apple pie, you call Szarlotka.


Yes, I now that now, but it is quite common in English to say for example, ' I love this cake, this dessert ' etc, but in Polish as you have perfectly explained, it's not what you would say.


No it doesn't. Dairy products are all those made from milk, cheese, yogurts etc, but not eggs.


Yes, I do know this, I've been to many Polish birthday celebrations. I was eating tort only yesterday :-)

A very simple rule.

Oni - includes at least one man (a tiny, tiny bit more complicated but that will do)
One - doesn't

The grammatical gender of nouns in the singular does not apply in a straightforward manner to the plural. All feminine and neuter and inanimate masculine nouns are one in the plural while for oni the semantic conditions (+male, +adult, +human) have to apply.

Apple pie made in a Polish way is always sweet.

Another name for it is jabłecznik. You will probably find people claiming that szarlotka and jabłecznik are two different things, but basically both of them are types of an apple pie(I don't know what's the difference and if there is any, but if there is, it should be easy to google). And both of them are sweet.

But thanks for the explanation!

What in Poland which can be somehow an equivalent of a pie is a "tarta" - it can be also non-sweet. But it's still, I think, a very special kind of a pie.


So it's another good example of differences between languages :)


What's important is that it has to be a man. Not a woman, not a thing, even not a thing with the masculine grammatical gender.

As it was explained already, the division to genders for plural is different from the one for singular, and it is so:
1) rodzaj męskoosobowy - the name means something like masculine-personal (oni)
2) rodzaj niemęskoosobowy - non-masculine-personal (one)
The names of these genders are self-explanatory.

Everything different from masculine people is in the "non-masculine-personal" gender.

I've heard different opinions on whether a woman and boys together are oni or one.... One grammar suggests that the features male, human and adult all have to be there but not necessarily in the same individual. But this is nitpicking against the general principle.


No and a thousand times no. Neither szarlotka nor jabłecznik (while both nice) are applie pie which has to have a crust on the bottom and top (it can be a lattice top but it needs to be there). It may be topped with either ice cream or a slice of cheese (and neither szarlotka nor jabłecznik can).

I've never had what I would call real apple pie in Poland, I'm not even that crazy about apple pie but the people that say it's szarlotka or jabłecznik drive me crazy (like people who confuse barbecue and grill, very different things in the US).

Never ever such a group will be described with "one". "One" in reference to people suggest the female character of the group very strongly.

You can use "one" in reference to children (dzieci) irrespective of their gender (males, females or mixed) as, for example, in "One (dzieci) były dzisiaj grzeczne".

Talking about boys (and boys are children and not adults) you will always say: "chłopcy (oni) byli grzeczni" and never "chłopcy (one) były grzeczne". But you will say "chłopaki były grzeczne" or "chłopaki poszły nad rzekę". The plural noun "chłopaki" is something special which evades the rule. A similar noun is "urwisy" which refers to boys or "łobuzy" which refers to boys or adult males (te łobuzy ukradły kobiecie torebkę). And to complicate things even further, I would always answer the question "Dokąd chłopaki poszły?" with either "Poszły nad rzekę" or "Oni poszli nad rzekę", but never with "one poszły nad rzekę" as in the latter case my interlocutor would instantly imagine girls rather than boys.

What's the difference? Do I think well that barbecue = party, grill = device?


As a native Pole I don't know whether it's correct or not. The word "chłopaki" always makes difficulties in conjugation. At school I often used to hear "chłopaki poszli", but it sounded bad. The suggested version here (and probably the proper one) is "chłopaki poszły", but it also sounds bad for me and it has always been so ("chłopaki" = a group of men, exactly - boys, so it's "masculine-personal"). The easiest is to avoid it saying "chłopcy poszli" :)

Here a linguist claims that "chłopaki poszły" is correct: obcyjezykpolski.pl/?page_id=4841 - so I believe this is the correct version, even though it's an exception from the rule.

With "urwis", "łobuz" you don't have the indication whether it's a boy or a girl, so in this case it's not such a problem.

A real problem appears when you have two or more subjects connected with "i" :) It's so called "serial subject" (podmiot szeregowy): sjp.pwn.pl/poradnia/szukaj/podmiot-szeregowy.html - it very often leads to a few possibilities of the verb conjugation, each of them sounds awkward. Look for example here: sjp.pwn.pl/poradnia/haslo/wybor-orzeczenia-przy-tzw-podmiocie-szeregowym;13342.html - answer: there is no rule for that.

"£obuz" is definitely on the masculine side. You will always say "łobuz ukradł" and you will always say "te dwa łobuzy ukradły", but you will never say "te dwie łobuzy ukradły". If you wanted to say that "łobuzy" were girls or females, you would say "te dwie łobuzice ukradły kobiecie torebkę".

In traditional American usage (now much corrupted) barbecue means cooked in the smoke of a wood fire (and special devices were used for that). The meat was served "dry" with barbecue sauce (with ketchup honey and balsamic vinegar and other ingredients) on the side or basted in the sauce before cooking. Where I'm from in restaurants white people made the dry type while black people made the basted variety (everybody ate both).

Grill is .... grill.

And when they are both male and female, I can say "tych dwoje łobuzów ukradło kobiecie torebkę" :)

Yes, you are right, it's analogous to the professions. Not to limit us to only two people, let's take five. And then we have:

- pięciu lekarzy (men only)
- pięcioro lekarzy (both men and women)
- pięć lekarek (women only)
The problem emerges when you have a profession with a name, which has no female version. Or they exist, however, they aren't used in official language, but only in everyday speech, like "dyrektorka". Then you need to deal with that in such a way:

- dwóch dyrektorów
- dwoje dyrektorów
- dwie panie dyrektor

With "łobuz"...
- trzech łobuzów (boys only) -> not a problem
- troje łobuów (boys and girls) -> not a problem
- trzy... (girls only) -> we have a problem, "łobuzice" seems to be the only option; in this case it's not a problem because the word "łobuz" is colloquial

Im am thinking of a word which could be used in an official text and it would make such a problem. Let's say "wandal"...

- czterech wandali
- czworo wandali
- cztery... wandalki? -> it seems to be ok; it's not often used, because usually it's boys, and not girls, who vandalises something, but it's ok.

A bigger problem are professions which have feminine names, when they are performed by men - but then the problems are more basic, because it's impossible to use such a proffession name at all. Say "kosmetyczka" (beautician). How should I call a man who is a beautician? Kosmetyk? It means just a cosmetic. Although it shouldn't be such a problem, since "kosmetyczka" also has an alternative meaning (a small bag in which women carry their cosmetics)... But I have never heard the word "kosmetyk" in the meaning of a person.


Do you mean something which is called in Polish "wędzenie" (the process), "wędzony" (a product, like e.g. a ham)? The typical way to prepare sausage, ham and similar products, but usually before they get to shops, not at home (although in the past in village areas they were prepared at home from the fresh meat in a specially built construction)?

I always learned the above plural distinction as follows:

Widzę TYCH ludzi. (generic people aka men and women colletively!)
Widzę te książki. (books being governed by the feminine, for both female LIVING vs. NON-Living nouns cf. same rule for "książki" as for "kobiety", as they're both feminine!)

"Widzę TYCH ludzi, którZY moje rodzice znają." vs. "Widzę te (+ ANY non-living aka INanimate nouns of EITHER gender, including animals!!)________, którE........"

etc....

Same goes for "dobrE" (for things) vs. "dobrZY" (for people).

Is this correct on my part?

But also:
> Widzę te samochody.
while "samochód" (singular) is masculine.

Everything non-living is treated in such a way, independent of its gender.


You messed something up.

"Tych" is here not needed at all (unless you are pointing at them, but then you don't say "którzy"/"których").

You could have meant:
> Widzę ludzi, którzy znają moich rodziców. -> I can see people who know my parents.
> Widzę ludzi, których znają moi rodzice. -> I can see the people who (whom?) my parents know (= known by my parents).
> Widzę TYCH ludzi, oni znają moich rodziców. -> I can see THESE people, they know my parents.
> Widzę TYCH ludzi, ich znają moi rodzice. -> I can see THESE people, my parents know them.


It's ok and now I understand. The verb "widzieć" was not a good choice for this example. It could be:
> Chodzę do tych lekarzy, którzy mają podpisaną umowę z NFZ-em. -> I visit the doctors ("the" means here something like "these"), who have a contract with the NFZ (National Health Fund).


Right. "Dobrzy" = masculine (or group of masculine and feminine) people. "Dobre" = feminine or neuter people and things. But there are exceptions, like "dobre chłopaki", "złe łobuzy".

I understand now! In my sentence, I confused Polish case structure with English word order and what came out was nonsense!
"Garbage in, garbage out" (Z bzdury będzie bzdura = (Verbal) garbage begets (more) garbage.)
:-)

By the way, how to express this:


properly in English, using a complex sentence and not a participle? Should it be with "who", "whom", or with something else? I could use here "that" for sure, but I want to use the alternative word instead of that.

"I (can) see the/those people WHOM my parents know." "Who" is colloquial, but not wrong! Rather like "If I were she" vs. "If I was her" The latter's perfectly acceptable in speech, though ungrammatical:-)

So... English has cases (other than Nominative and Genitive) :) At least a small remainder :) And this "-m" ending reminds me Dative in German. The origin must be common :)

It is a similar situation to Polish having a remainder of a Past Perfect tense in the expressions like "powinienem był to zrobić".

Yet in English, one cannot say/write: "Diligent students like every teacher" etc. This is essentially gibberish!! While such word construction or syntax might well be fine in German and Polish, it's unthinkable in English.

Here, I can't entirely agree with you as regards acceptable, that is, idiomatically natural as well as grammatical English word order.

No, wędzenie is a way of preserving meat more than cooking it. (or it's smoked and then cooked in separate processes).

A barbecuer has a compartment for burning wood and funnels the hot smoke to the meat to cook it (either dry or basted in barbecue sauce).

If you do a google image search for "barbecue smoker" you'll see what the modern devices look like.

Another search for "open pit barbecue" will show more what the original process (originally created by American Indians) was like.


In (American) educated (at least high school) usage the most natural is probably

I see the people my parents know.

I see the people that my parents know. (also fine, but maybe a little ood)

I see the people who my parents know. (just a tiny bit odder for no reason I can name)

I see the people whom my parents know. (much too 'ę ą' unless you're speaking in a very formal setting as in delivering a eulogy).

The _only_ time i'd use whom is when it's a relative pronoun preceded by a preposition in more formal usage and probably written.

The dean, to whom I addressed my appeal never answered.

in speech

The dean I appealed to never answered.

As a fellow native (English) speaker, I cannot entirely concur that "I see the people WHO my parents know." is "odd" at all, quite the contrary!

Then again, British vs. US usage can cause even some of us seasoned observers of language to raise their eyebrows:-)

It seems a bit more like a non-restrictive relative clause with 'who' (for me, ymmv) and it seems like an odd thing to add to the sentence, that is more restrictive (and implies the people have been referred to previously).


As can US vs US....

To be sure! I guess I surprised my hosts in London once by suggesting, "that I drop by their apartment ON the weekend for a up of coffee." vs. "..knock them up in their flat AT the weekend for a spot of tea."

It cuts both ways, it surely does:-)

As long as i live here i have never heard any Brit saying it that way. Maybe it's some sort of local slang. Where i live(Northamptonshire) people say "them" instead of "those". For example "Can you bring them ones over here?".

Then you haven't yet lived, my friend! Or at the very least, not too long.lol
:-)

A decade is quite long i'd assume. :)

I've heard it on British TV like Sky News, usually prouncouned "at the weekEND" (sounds like 'weak end')

Also "it were" instead of "it was" (not on broadcast but from a lot of different Brits, including educated ones "It were cold today"

The weirdest for me are forms like "give me it" (or maybe "give it me") which seem to be more regional (and not found in the US at all as far as I know).

Awake or asleep, Nocy? You even admitted that you weren't in the London area, but quite a stretch away:-) I'll concede that the regional differences even in a small country like England make US-East/West varieties pale by comparison.

Perhaps you're right as well.

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