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

Thanks, I think I get it now. How about this?

Kto kochał Katarzynę?
Adam
Kogo Adam kochał?
Katarzynę

Kto lubi kawę?
Ja!
Co ja lubię?
Kawę!

Super dzięki.

Excellent.

Dzięki

Good observation. There are very many verbs that can be used as either reflexive or non-reflexive, with the former requiring dopełniacz and the latter biernik e.g.:

napić się herbaty vs. wypić herbatę
najeść się chleba vs. zjeść chleb
naoglądać się filmów vs. oglądać filmy
nasłuchać się głupot vs. słuchać głupoty
etc.

The "na-... się" construction is used to indicate that someone did something as much as he could and now he's full or tired or cannot do it any more. It can be used with virtually every verb e.g.:

Napracowałem się dzisiaj i jestem zmęczony - I worked hard today and now I'm tired.
Najadłem się chleba - I ate bread (and I'm full now)
Nagadałem się tyle że mnie boli gardło - I talked so much and now I have a sore throat

Cinek

Co słuchacie w tej chwili?

When I was checking the internet for how to say this I found many instances of:

Czego słuchacie w tej chwili?

Kogo Czego is a genitive question as far as I know, what is the story?

słuchać takes genitive - słuchać kogo, czego - słuchać mówcy, muzyki (listen to)

"słuchać co" is incorrect albeit used in speech - it's lazy language

strzyga


So I could say:

Kogo słuchacie? Who are you listening to?
or
Czego słuchacie? What are you listening to?

perfect :)

Thanks

Merged: Difference between Czego/Czemu? Dlatego/Dlatemu?

Also, would "I miss Poland" be said "Troche tesknię za Polską" ? Thanks.

I miss Poland a bit.


it doesn't exist

tesknię za polską
Czemu sie pytasz? - Why are you asking?
Czego chcesz? - What do you want?
Dlatego - That's why, or Because
Dlaczego? - Why?


A bit could mean a little bit or quite a bit, proper english would be : "I miss Poland a little"

Kto mówi? = Who's speaking?

Kogo szukasz? = Who(m) are you looking for?

Komu pomagasz? = Whom are you helping?
itd...

Merged: KTO? CO? KOGO? CZEGO?

Czesc wszyscy

Could anyone give me any explanations of the different question words used in the different cases?

Mianownik N (who/kto? what/co?)
Dopełniacz G (of who/kogo? of what/czego?)
Celownik D (to whom/komu? to what/czemu?)
Biernik A (whom/kogo? what/co?)
Narzędnik I (with whom/z kim? with what/z czym?)
Miejscownik L (about whom/o kim? about what/o czym? where/gdzie?)

In the exercise below we're given statements and then I have to give the appropriate questions using Kogo? or Co? (my answers given in bold)..in relation to the Biernik case.

1. Mama zna mojego profesora. Kogo ona zna?
2. Dziewczyna lubi studenta. Kogo ona lubi?
3. Piotr pije sok. Co on pije?
4. Ten pan czyta gazete. Co on czyta?
5. Ja mam kota. Co masz?

I've noticed that the word 'kogo' means 'of who' (in the Dopelniacz case), and 'whom'. (in the Biernik case).

In essence, when you are asked a question in Polish, do the question words (as above) give a clue to which case to use?

I've a bit of a headache trying to get used to this. Is this important to understand? :-/

Yes very important. It has to do with direct interrogation ( co masz? czo robisz ?) or indirect interrogation( Kogo ona zna ?) ale Kto jest?direct

I imagine doing such exercises must be a pretty depressing job. Why don't you try to "bite" the Polish language from a different perspective? Your method reminds me of my efforts to master the declinations of the German noun with and without the German adjective, for example. This had been leading me to nowhere until I began to learn the language through contexts, trying to memorize proper word endings through the relations of objects represented by those declined words in these specific contexts. That way I had almost completely "forgotten" about the tables of German declinations and started to learn the language in a more natural and a hell more friendly way.

Czesść

LwowskaKrakow i Ziemowit

Thanks for your replies. I have a few books that I'm systemically working through, and one in particular (Po Polsku 1) introduces these cases one by one.

I have learnt a few instances where to use the Instrumental case. 'Poprozę herbatę z mlekiem?'. Please do correct me if I'm incorrect but I believe herbatę is in the Accusative and mlekiem is in the Instrumental - i hope!

It's just remembering how to change the nouns to their corresponding case endings. I remember my polish mate at my house asking for coffee with milk. Obviously he used the correct lingo and remember thinking why has he said 'mlekiem' and not 'mlek' (that is the only word I new for milk). Now of course, I understand! Slowly but surely It's all sinking in.... So far, just done Nominative, Intrumental, Accusative ...

Did you just do away with case ending tables etc?

Chrząszcz, you're doing a good job, you ask right questions and you understand the subject matter you study well. It will take time, but polish will get easy for you after a while. Just ask Szwed....

Thanks zman

I am so very humbled by this forum. This has become the only place where I can ask grammatical questions. I am really touched as there are so many talented and intelligent linguists out there who reply giving their help and hints. Moderators: Keep up the good work!!!

Dziękuję bardzo!

Bad news. Polish grammar has been recently enriched by three new cases:
Intymnik: Kto? Z kim? Za ile?
Wygryźnik: Kto? Kogo? Za co?
£apownik: Kto? Komu? Ile?

(I hope you have not heard it before)

Oh dear!!!

No, I haven't heard of them! How and why have they been introduced? I can't find anything on the internet.

Take it easy. This was just a joke reflecting on some Polish social realities. :-) So forget it - these are not extra cases. But for the heck of it you may wish to translate from Polish to English those funny "cases": Intymnik, Wygryźnik, £apownik. How would you translate it? Sounds like a fun assignment. :-)

But seriously, aside from your tremendously good attitude to studying Polish grammar, which I very much applaud, you may find it useful to switch sometimes to much simpler methods and follow some fun rules devised just for kids. There are plenty of books and brochures invented to make it easier for primary school children to cope with some grammar or orthographic rules. One of them is here: bibliotekawszkole.pl/inne/gazetki/77/index.php

With all due respect to your sophisticated approach - in order to handle complexity of the grammar rules it is sometimes easier to memorize things using kids' rhymed stories. It may sound stupid, but it is quite useful. For example, I always refer to this little rhyme when I try interpreting the bloody sky colours, when sailing:

"Kiedy słońce krwawo wschodzi,
w marynarzu bojażń rodzi.
A gdy czerwień o zachodzie,
wie marynarz o pogodzie."

The English version is:

"Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight;
Red sky at morning,
Sailor's warning."

There are plenty of useful little rhymes to help coping with Polish grammar rules. For example, the "h" versus "ch" rule is rhymed here:

Kłopotliwe samo "h"
Dość szczególną skłonność ma;
Lubi hałaśliwe słowa:
Huk, harmider, hałasować,
Heca, hurmem, hej, hop, hura,
Hola, horda, hejnał, hulać,
Hasać, halo, hop, wataha..
W tych wypadkach się nie wahaj!

Excellent.


Seems to me that it makes things simpler: with personal nouns, you use just one form instead of two - dopełniacz and biernik are the same so you don't need to ponder which one to use.

With non-personal nouns, however, you have to know your cases as the forms are different.
Still, there is a tendency in Polish to replace biernik with dopełniacz (dopełniacz takes over), so you are very likely to encounter phrases like "jem banana" or "patrzę na pomidora" instead of "jem banan" and "patrzę na pomidor". Some of these are already deemed correct.

I think both examples were always correct in Polish - it's not that it is Genetive - it is just the case when Accusative has the same form as Genetive (meaning the Accusative of 'pomidor' is simply 'pomidora' and Genetive is the same

You've got me checking, Gumisiu, as I was sure this was a case of biernik being taken over by dopełniacz. You're right though, as it seems that some nouns have double biernik forms, depending on whether you treat them as animates or inanimates (hence, widzę pomidor or widzę pomidora, both correct). Mostly it pertains to foods. But it's still a blurry area as there are words like balon (kup mi balona) - balon is neither animate nor edible. The "double biernik" thing is spreading to include more and more nouns.

For me, it's still dopełniacz which has been renamed biernik for some obscure reasons; after all, the question remains "czego", and not "co". But the grammarians claim otherwise. Oh well...

poradnia.pwn.pl/lista.php?szukaj=banana&kat=18

It is not dopełniacz, but it is biernik still. To find out, you replace "balon" with a feminine noun like, for example, gruszka:

Kup mi gruszkę ("gruszkę" is biernik in singular, whereas dopełniacz in singular should be "Kup mi gruszki".

The question will be "Kup mi kogo? co? [biernik]" and not "Kup mi kogo? czego? [dopełniacz]". One wouldn't say: Kup mi samolota, kup mi telewizora, kup mi telefona komórkowego.

It is not only grammarians who claim otherwise; most native speakers feel it in this same way as grammarians...

Kup mi laptopa, netbooka.
Zainstalowałem Worda.

The -a biernik seems to be increasingly popular with new words that come into the language. Also, I don't think that the sentence "kup mi balona" would have been deemed correct 30 years ago. So it's all part of the process of dopełniacz forms taking over biernik role.

No one disagrees with that. It is simply that some masculine nouns not necessarily describing edible things take the -a ending in biernik as well. It has nothing to do with the dopełniacz taking the role of biernik. Such phenomenon doesn't exist in Polish. You confuse this with the phenomenon of certain verbs taking biernik in place of dopełniacz, such as in the case of the verb "ustąpić" requiring traditionally kogo? co? - dopełniacz, being replaced with "ustąp mi miejsce" (kogo? co? - biernik).

I dare say "kup mi balona" existed and was deemed correct 30 years ago and even more, just in the same way as "zapal mi papierosa/palić papierosa" has existed in Polish for a very long time. The best way to be sure is to read the pre-1939 press or literature.

Merged: why? czemu albo dlaczego?

anyone on here that has read my posts knows i am keen to improve my polish. not understanding the grammar, and learning conversationally, its a bit difficult. i dont know why, but most of the time i get it right. however still dont understand why sometimes its czemu, sometimes dlaczego? anyone care to enlighten me? lodger and boyfriend dont speak enough english to explain!!

Hi Pam,

Czemu is an informal way of saying dlaczego.

czemu pot. «dlaczego»

Pytanie "czemu?" jest po prostu potocznym synonimem - "dlaczego?"

jezykowedylematy.pl/2010/09/czy-pytanie-dlaczego-wolno-zastapic-skroconym-czemu