Instrumental case "To Jest " and "Jest" Need help with correcting my examples in Polish

So, To jest takes on the Nom. and Jest takes on the Inst.? Is this correct?
The verb "byc" Using Jestem, Jesteś, Jest, Jesteśmy, etc. And what about negation, Is it automatically Genitive or does it stay as instrumental? And what is wrong with the ability to space words on this forum? I wanted a side by side comparison but was unable to due so and the words would be all jumbled together. Dzięki.

Which is correct?
Gdzie jest Kasią? or Gdzie jest Kasia?
Gdzie jest Damianem? Gdzie jest Damian?
Gdzie jest Jagodą? Gdzie jest Jagoda?

Instrumental case

Ona jest ładną or Ona jest ładna
Ona jest piękną or Ona jest piękna
Ona jest grubą or Ona jest gruba
On jest miłym or On jest miły
On jest grubym or On jest gruby
On jest mądrym or On jest mądry

Jesteś grubą or Jesteś gruba
Jesteś piękną or Jesteś piękna
Jesteś grubym or Jesteś gruby
Jesteś mądrym or Jesteś mądry

Jestem grubym or Jestem gruby
Jestem grubą or Jestem gruba

Negation (genitive)

Ona nie jest ładnej or Ona nie jest ładną
Ona nie jest pięknej or Ona nie jest piękną
Ona nie jest grubej or Ona nie jest grubą
On nie jest miłego or On nie jest miłym
On nie jest grubego or On nie jest grubym
On nie jest mądrego or On nie jest mądrym

Nie jesteś grubej or nie jesteś grubą
Nie jesteś pięknej or Nie jesteś piękną
Nie jesteś grubego or Nie jesteś grubym
Nie jesteś mądrego or Nie jesteś mądrym

Nie jestem grubego or Nie jestem grubym
Nie jestem grubej or Nie jestem grubą

When only an adjective is used after być, you put it in the nominative case: On jest miły.
But if the adjective qualifies a noun both are put in the instrumental case: On jest miłym chłopakiem.
As for your examples:
Ona jest/nie jest ładna/piękna/gruba.
but
Ona jest/nie jest ładną/ piękną/ grubą dziewczyną.
On jest/nie jest miły/gruby/mądry.
But
On jest/nie jest miłym/grubym/miłym chłopakiem.
Similarly
Jestem/Nie jestem/jesteś/Nie jesteś miły/miła.
But
Jestem/Nie jestem/Jesteś/Nie jesteś miłą dziewczyną/miłym chłopakiem.

Gdzie jest + nominative
Gdzie jest Kasia/Tomek/kelner/księgowa.

yet if być is preceded by a demonstrative pronoun (ten,to,ta,ci,te), the instrumental is not used, even when put together with an adjective:


wprost.pl/10038166
I still fail at this regularly. btw., why to and not ta?

about the negation requiring the genitive: this seems only to modify the accusative:
oglądam telewizię / nie oglądam telewizji
ma mleko / nie ma mleka
będzie czas / nie będzie czasu
znamy adres / nie znamy adresu

być requires either the nominative or the instrumental, for this reason a negated być is not modified with the genitive.

'To' serves as a sort of subject here and not as a pronoun. Something like the 'it' in English' or 'es' in German: Es war eine gute Reise - To była dobra podróż; 'reise' is also feminine.


'Jest mleko / nie ma mleka' is the correct phrase. And 'mleko' is in nominative here. Likewise: będzie czas (nominative) / nie będzie czasu (genetive).

To jest dobra ksiazka. - Nominative

"Quo Vadis" jest dobra ksiazka. - Instrumental

The "to" of the first sentence signifies that the sentence will be in the first case, whereas the second sentence indicates that the subject in question exists as how it is described, therefore, it must stand in the Instrumental (narzednik = tool, instrument)

Marek pracuje jako tlumacz. - Nominative
Marek JEST tlumaczEM. - Instrumental

Rule of thumb is that whenever speaking of nationalities or professions using "byc", the Instrumental is obligatory:

Kto to jest? To jest Harald. - Nominative

ale:

KIM jest Harald? Harald jest NiemCEM. - Instrumental

Perhaps the above makes a tad more sense now:-)

@jgrabner
Not necessarily. Look
Ten mężczyzna jest moim mężem ;)

What's often tricky for foreigners learning Polish, such as yours truly, is the concept of certain cases which have no direct equivalent in the learner's native language(s). German has a Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative, but not an Instrumental, obviously derived in part from the fifth case of Latin, namely, the Ablative of means or instrument. The Instrumental has simply been subsumed by other cases, therefore, I had to learn by heart, "cieszyc sie", "interesowac sie", "pokrywac" and others which take the Instrumental.

The fact that there are numerous COMMON, everyday verbs which require the Instrumental is something which needs constant study and careful attention, perhaps as with phrasal idioms aka prepositional phrases in English, regardless of one's exposure to them!

It depends on the context.
[Krowa] ma mleko. [Krowa] nie ma mleka.
Jest mleko [w lodówce]? Nie ma mleka [w lodówce].

I often found the use of the Instrumental in Polish slightly more transparent than that of the Genitive:-) Always keep reminding myself that whenever I'm negating something with any verb other than "byc", the Genitive is required (counting quirks notwithstanding).

Not without reason the genetive is called 'Dopełniacz' in Polish. When you think of 'negating' in terms of 'missing' and you assume that something which is missing should be supplied/fulfilled/delivered, you will easily link negation to an expectation of fulfillment (dopełnienie --> dopełniacz). Anyway, this is how I would try to explain to myself the idea of negation rendered through the form of genetive (dopełniacz), if I were not a native speaker of Polish.

This idea is very clearly expressed in verbs such as "brakować" naturally requiring their compliment in dopełniacz, for example:
Brakuje mi (kogo? czego? - dopełniacz) miliona dolarów, abym czuł się w pełni szczęśliwy.

A more natural way for an English speaker would probably be seeking the compliment in 'biernik' (accusative) to express such an idea.

A most informative post, Ziemowitku:-)
Thank you.

Incidentally, the title of my second "official" Polish primer when I was first learning years and years ago, was "Brak mi slow!", published by the Polish For Foreigners Division of Jagiellon University in Cracow. If you're interested.

thanks, it's really the same as in German


is there ever a correct way to say brakuję (mi)? I see that a lot - if you enter that phrase in Google, you will get >50.000 hits, but according to 301 Polish Words, this form does not even exist.

@igrabner, this is what I was explaining to you in my posts.

Only in German, the Instrumental has been long subsumed by other cases, for instance, the Nominative, therefore there remains again NO direct equivalent for the Instrumental and must therefore be internalized (verinnerlicht) one verb at a time:-)

The brakuję mi form is evidently an incorrect form. On mustn't use the letter ę in this. Notice that I wrote 'brakuje mi' and not 'brakuję mi'. The verb here is in the third person singular and the subject of this sentence is implicit, in my view.

There are some other bizzare constructions in Polish. Compare these two sentences, for example:
- Dwaj mężczyźni szli drogą
- Dwóch mężczyzn szło drogą
Both mean precisely the same thing.

Once read that "dwoch" is more colloquial. Is this correct? There's a Polish idiom "Brak mi slow!" I can only translate it into German as "Es verschlug mir die Sprache!" In English, "I'm at a loss for words!" Something like that:-)

there is some truth to it

Dwóch i dwaj are not always interchangeable - Było ich dwóch. "there were two of them" but not Było ich dwaj.

I understand now. It's merely a question of accepted conventional usage.