Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego?

Could someone tell me what the difference between these words for 'What' are? I am currently going through a polish grammar book and there are the following 2 questions:

- Czego sie napijesz?
- Co chcialbys zjesc?

I am just wondering whe each is used.
Many thanks,
vincent

I'm not sure but probably first one refers to nouns in genitive case. Second one to nouns in accusative case. I know it's a stupid example but:

- Czego się napijesz? Napiję się wody.
- Co chciałbyś zjeść? Zjem wodę.
; )

there's an easy answer to this one.

you use czego when that particular case is required, and co in the same respect. there is a limitless number of situations where you use each of them.

you need to study Polish cases and declensions. if you're asking a question like that, you obviously have just begun studying Polish which means your next thread will be "when do I use kogo and when do I use komu?" and then "When do I use kto and when do I use kogo?"

cases, cases, cases. study them. how they work, when they happen, which verbs collocate with which case, etc. etc. And then after you get sick and tired of it and give up, it will save some people some precious typing time not having to try and explain it anymore.

ok, the last part was a little bitter, but if I had to place some bets here.....

there is no 2 cent explination for this like in English for something like, "when do I use which and when do I use who?"

Vincent


Totally uncalled for. If you can contribute constructively, dont bother at all. Maybe that will save you some time typing. I am aware of the cases, and i am also aware of different ways of saying 'What', 'Who' etc. However, in the example above, i was just unaware that the rflexive verb casued a certain declanation.

I just checked the title of this forum and it says 'Grammar usage', and hence felt totallly justified in asking a question.

FRD..Thanks for you assistance.

If you don't want to waste your time, why bother writing anything at all in these language and grammar threads? Leave it to the good folks who enjoy explaining the Polish language.


Of course you're fully justified asking a question on this forum and please continue to do so. Don't let the above put you off, as 99.9% of the people who answer queries on here, are always willing to help and glad to be of service. :)

it was uncalled for. to be honest, when i went back and reread your question, I realized I basically misread it. i shot from the hip and I had just drunk a Burn Energy Drink.

my apologies.

napić się (drink) - in polish this verb is a reflexive noun, which is indicated by the particle się, but it is not important here. The verb 'napić się' 'governs' the grammatical case called 'dopełniacz', that is genitive or possessive case, and the question you ask in this case is czego. Case differentiation is less important in English than in other languages e.g. Polish and German. If you happen to know the last one, then in the grammar of German there is such concept as Rektion.

zjeść (eat) - this verb governs the grammatical case called biernik, that is accusative, and the question you ask in this case is 'co'.

Sorry, not a reflexive noun but a reflexive verb.

THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Nom. & Acc: Co
Gen: Czego
Dat: Czemu
Instr & Loc: Czym

And in your case napić się governs the genitive case.

it is also important to remark that although zjeść demands(governs) object in the accusative case it's negation demands genitive

Nie zjem tego świństwa. - I won't eat/have that nasty stuff.

That's the same as for almost all other verbs.

Nie mam samochodu.
Nie lubię kawy.
Nie chcemy czarnej herbaty.

Certain verbs are governed by certain cases which simply DON'T correspond to English, ditto the "no 2 percent" rule for when to and when not to use a given form.

For instance, the verb 'szukać' (look for, search) takes 'czego', rather than 'co'. In English, the verb translates to , e.g. "What are you looking for?", whereas in Polish "Czego (not "Co") szukasz means literally "Of what are you looking?". Do not bother though to translate structures from one language into another, even with closely related ones, you'll only confuse yourself:-)

Furthermore, the genitive is the most widely used case in Polish, frequently used in situations which continue to baffle even more fluent speakers, such as:

Mam ołówek. = I have a pencil.
Co masz? = What do you have?
Ołówek. = A pencil

VS.

Nie mam ołówku. = I don't have a pencil.
Czego? = What (...don't you have)?
Ołówku.

When affirming possession, Polish uses exclusively the nominative, no matter which gender (living masculine nouns, i.e. 'pies', 'chłopiec' etc... nothwithstanding!!), just like English, yet charactaristically always employs the genitive when negating possession.

To be continued, I'm sure. LOL

OłówkA for crying out loud! ;-p

'Scuse me, I meant Polish uses the ACCUSATIVE to affirm possession, what I posted above is obviously a pure typo))))))

Of course, Madzia. I mistyped again. Most of the 'a'/'u' masculine endings really must be learned individually, musn't they? I console myself that it's probably like German gender articles 'der', 'die', 'das' for foreigners. Thank H----n, I'll never know for sure.lol

Dzięki!!!!

I assume then it's the same as 'a' for other masculine non-living vs. 'u' for living nouns, yes?'-:)

Szukam podręcznikA "............"

Szukam gościU (or: gościA), pana Kowalskiego.

Nie już mam mojego komputerA.

etc.....

gościa


It's the opposite I'd say. Most living masculine nouns (gen. sing.) end in -a. I'd guess it's > 80%. (chłopaka, studenta, psa, kota, gościa etc.)

When it comes to non-living nouns (a much bigger group) it's more difficult. But the majority of words here end in -u.

Tacka, Szwed!

'Komputer'/'komputera' etc.... would then be an exception to the u-ending predominance for masculine inanimate nouns, basically.

You can say that. There are many non-living nouns ending in -a. So there are many exceptions. For example, non-living things you can eat often end in -a.

Masculine edibles, I presume::-)))

chleb/chlebA
sendwicz/sendwiczA

.........

Merged: co, jak, czego - usage

i am a bit more confused, i am reading more and more phrases with the question 'what', and the polish use the word jak and not co, or czego, what are the rules for this word.

i use jak when i want to say 'how', co when i want to ask 'what, but i also use the gen czego for 'what'.

most of the time i can tell what they are saying, but there are others where the quesiton is' what' and the polish word used is jak.

What do you mean? co pan znaczy?
What is your name? Jak się pan nazywa
What do you expect? Czego pan oczekuje
What sort of book is that? Jaka to jest ksiąźka

chaza

It should be - O co panu chodzi?
But you dont need to add 'panu' and you can just say 'o co ci chodzi', though it would be less polite.

As you say co=what, jak=how, sometimes Jaki/Jaka/Jakie (see below).

But there are expressions in all languages that can't be translated word-by-word into for example English. This means we get exceptions from the rule above.

One of these exceptions is "what kind of" / "what sort of". As you said above. Here Polish uses Jak or Jaki/Jaka/Jakie.

Jak is not declined. It's used when you refer to a verb.
Jak się pan nazywa? (verb)

Jaki/Jaka/Jakie is declined as an adjective (both gender and case). It's used when you refer to an adjective.
Jaka to jest książka? (adjective)

How to decline Co:
Nom. & Acc: Co
Gen: Czego
Dat: Czemu
Instr. & Loc: Czym

This is commonly used with prepositions that governs the different cases.


O co panu/pani/ci chodzi?

thanks szwed
as you say, ill stick to the common, co'what', jak 'how'. im sure the more i speak with my cousin the better i will get and understand more. we all know the tenses are the most confusing.

thanks again

chaza

by the way szwed, can i follow up on something you said, What do you mean? co pan znaczy?
you said should be O co panu chodzi?
that i read as, about what you go, im not totally up on the chodić thing yet, as i undertsand it, znazcy means 'mean'
where have i gone wrong.

chaza

Actually I didn't think about it before. But all Poles say "O co panu/pani/ci chodzi?" in this situation.

Literary it means "About what are you going?". It doesn't make sense in English, but in Polish it does make sense.

But you use "znaczy" when you define what words mean, and in most other situations.

thanks for that!

chaza

In fact, saying 'O co panu chodzi' may not be polite in many situations.
The better expression would be 'Co ma Pan/Pani na myśli' or just ' nie rozumiem co Pan/Pani mówi'. This sentence can be used any time you don't understand what someone means or just you don't understand the words they are using.

If you say 'O co panu chodzi' it's a "higher level" of confusion when you have completely no idea what's going on (like: what the f..k are you talking about ???)

cinek

O CO PANU CHODZI?: In many cases might be translated as 'What's your point?' or 'What's your problem?'

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?: In some contexts might be 'Co Pan chce przez to powiedzieć?', 'W jakim sensie?' or even 'W czym rzecz?' (although some regard the latter as an intolerable russicism: w cziom dieło?)

in a previous post the word 'co' i am told has several meaning.
as,every,what,which,that.
is it not best to use the words already used foer the same, like
as=jako
what=co
which=które
that= źe( also some others depending on the case used)
every=wszelki

will this not reduce the confusion.

chaza

Not out of context, no - the English words also have multiple meanings.

The title of this page is: Kto napisał książkę roku?

This is a biernik question as far as I know, kogo, co but they used kto?

Would anyone be able to explain this to me?

right, and it applies to "książkę", which is indeed in the Acc.
napisać kogo, co - książkę.
But "kto" is in Nom.

Kto = subject (always nominative)
książkę = direct object (accusative)

Accusative and genitive of kto would be kogo.

Kto lubi kawę?
Od kogo dostałaś tą sukienkę?