A little Polish grammar. Masculine, animate objects.

Jeden pies/dwa psy/ trzy psy/ cztery psy/ pięć psów ( i assume thats correct)?

ale.....Trzech chłopców

i thought that masculine animate nouns would have the same changes.

Obviously not unless i have made a mistake unless most of them are the same with a few exceptions????????????

cheers

Throw in trójka dzieci .
Edit:
Sorry, you were talking about masculine.

But 'pies' (and other animals, plants etc.) is an 'inanimate' object in grammatical sense (i.e. it gets all the relevant endings as 'real' inanimate objects for example 'stół'). 'Chłopiec' is the only animate noun here.

really bartolome?

the thing i love about polish is the more you learn the more you just get confused.

well that would explain it but that is strange

im sure one of my teachers spoke about spiders etc been animate objects in the grammatical sense

anyway cheers (so it is only men/women and children in a grammatical sense that are animate nothing else that is alive?)

and isnt it "troje dzieci"?

That is not correct. pies is definitely an animate object (used to be taught in grade 4 of Polish primary school, and repeated ad nauseam year after year).

In Polish there are three types of masculine nouns (rzeczowniki zywotne).This is the full list of genders, along with the subtypes in Polish:

Masculine
- Masculine personal, example: chlopiec (meski osobowy)
- Masculine animate, example: pies (meski zywotny)
- Masculine inanimate, example: dom (meski niezywotny)
Feminine, example: studentka
Neutral, example: krzeslo

All masculine personals are also animate, but not all masculine animate are personal.

Exactly. Personal masc nouns = only male humans

Male humans have special endings that differ from normal animate nouns (non-human).

When you take it one step further it gets confusing, I agree.

Damn right. I get confused about these subcategories of subcategories of subcategories too. Humans and animals are 'animate'. But plants are not. Sorry plg. Animals however are 'żywotne nieosobowe' (would that be 'animate non-personal' in English?).

No problems, hehehe.

Animals however are 'żywotne nieosobowe' (would that be 'animate non-personal' in English?).[/quote]

i would assume so :))

cheers again

The thing with Polish accusative is that we have a kind of a case shift ongoing in the language. "Pies" is by all means animate, but retains "irregular" (for its animacy) features.

A similar thing is English - twelve most often used verbs are irregular:
be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, get, know, give, find

Same goes for broadly used Polish nouns - they tend to evade rules ;-) But don't worry, there is only a couple of words with irregular inflection (well, certainly less than 500) and other nouns should easily succumb to the inflection :-)

As for grammatical descriptions, these are the proper names of genders and their subtypes:

1. Masculine
a) masculine personal (= animate)
b) masculine impersonal (= animate) (this one actually varies from source to source)
c) masculine inanimate

2. Feminine

3. Neuter

4. Masculine-personal

5. Feminine-objective (aka clunky Nonmasculine-personal)

Other than that, z_darius has explained this properly :-)

Merged: Polish Grammar!!!!

Alright So i have a question welll So I know how like Moj has a masc form of moj and a fem form of moja and a neutral form of moje

So then my question is how do you say things like the White pants...... So since Spodnie is in the neutral ending since it ends in an E, well then for white which is biaway which is well ending in a y making it a masc so you have to change it into a neutral form which ends in either an E or O. So how do I know that they sentence should go moje biawae spodnie.

How can you tell that Biawae shoudl end in E instead of O the other form for neutral endinds?????

mocha it's białe, not biawae
białe spodnie
białe not biały because spodnie is plural
bialy pies white dog
białe psy white dogs
rozumiesz?

rybnik
why did you get rid of the A also cause lets just say you were to say Green pants then it would be a zielona spodnie....... you only get rid of the Y the last letter and that is it.

green = zielony (masculine), zielona (feminine), zielone(plural)
spodnie = plural = ?
which form would you pick?

Well since Spodnie ends in E then I would choose the ednign that ends in either an E or an O since Spodnie is a neutral ending. So I would choose obys Spodnie, but i'm just saying so then lets say a Blue jacket, so your niebieski Palto, what makes it a twoje niebieske palto, why isnt is a twoje niebiesko palto???


Why Zielone???? Can't it also be Zielono????

\n','')dot18]Why Zielone???? Can't it also be Zielono????[/quote]
where are you getting the "o" option for an ending?
your choices are limited to a, y and e.

Why just only a, Y and E????? I have been told that the neutral ening is that with an E or an O ending, is this not true?????? A y ending would make a word a masc such as Buty is a masc word for boots, or even Skarpety for socks is masc NOT neutral

I was just told that the Neutral ending was with an O or an E

it's true for NOUNS not for adjectives

LOL alright well I guess that i'm not to the Adjectives lesson yet LOL but still how would I know that its białe spodnie and not biało spodnie. Is it because Spodinie ends with an E that they color it goes with then must end with the E?????

wow you really have a block don't you?
białó[b][/b] is NOT AN OPTION!
Earth to Mocha! HALO!
an o is not an ending befitting an adjective!
let's try it in French un joint n'est pas une fin pour un adjectif

but why??? Sorry if I sound Retarded but I really don't get why not??? I havn't learned this part yet so sorry if its annoying.

HAHAHAHA you'r french doesnt seem very good LOL, I'm only one chapter 3 LOL so i'm no Wiz geek at french either. Like I said myabei i' just beig retarded

Ok Mocha, have a look at these examples and hopefully it will be a little clearer for you :)

Masc: Ten dom jest duży - This house is big
Fem: - Ta kawa jest moja - This coffee is mine
Neuter: To piwo jest dobre - This beer is good

They look very familiar ;)

Mocha, 3 books that you need to buy:

amazon.co.uk/Polish-Weeks-intensive-course-CD-ROM/dp/8375440299/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
amazon.co.uk/301-Polish-Verbs-Conjugated-Barrons/dp/0764110209
amazon.co.uk/Collins-Pocket-Polish-Dictionary/dp/0007259980/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

Work on a chapter a day of the 1st book and in a month you'll be half way there ;)

As for the verbs, work on conjugating the present for imperfective verbs first. Then the past and then the future tenses.

Use the dictionary to build your vocabulary.

Read as many ebooks and watch as many Polish films as possible.

Hope that helps :)

What is confusing for first timers also can be the distinction in Slavic languages between masculine ANIMATE (NON-human) nouns, such as "pies", masculine INANIMATE, such as "samochód" vs. virile HUMAN nouns, such as "chłop" or "człowiek", not to mention but again the latter category of Polish nouns, this time though with 'feminine'-looking endings, notably "mężczyzna" etc., nonetheless declined as MASCULINE rather than feminine nouns!!

More on this topic, I'm sure:-)

What's tricky is, for example, "Widzę mój nowy stół." [= "table" - inanimate, i.e. non-human masculine accusative case], "Widzę moje psy." [= "dogs" - animate, i.e. living non-human masculine accusative case] BUT!!!: "Widzę mojEGO ojCA." (NOT: "Widzę mój ojciec.") because "father" is a living human noun and therefore requires GENITIVE case endings!!!!

Just takes oodles of practice:-)

HAHAHA yeah my bad lol i was accidentally spelling out the phonics to it.

LOL I learned about ten ta to te today!!!
But I get it so Thank you Pam
basically he said that no colors can end with the o ending lol not much explanation so whatever I wont ever enda color with o


Huh LOL???
Yeah I brought up the whole mezczyzna thing in class the other day, impressed my teacher :P So i get that part
What about dog, and car?


YEah......... i'm not this far yet LOL so a yeah no clue what you're talking about.

Mocha, it's the NOUNS that have neutral endings:

Biuro - Office
Kino - Cinema
Piwo - Beer
Spotkanie - Appointment/Meeting

This is where your 'o' and 'e' come from.

Colours are ADJECTIVES, words used to describe the nouns, and these end in 'y' or 'i' for masc adjectives, 'a' for feminine, and 'e' for neutral.

So for example: ( Neutral )
Zielone Biuro - Green Office
Czarne Kino - Black Cinema
Małe Piwo - Small Beer
Duże Spotkanie - Big Meeting

Feminine:
Biała Kawa - White Coffee
Mała Szkoła - Small School
Dobra Restauracja - Good Restaurant

Masculine:
Tani Pub - Cheap Pub
Mały Parasol - Small Umbrella
Czarny Długopis - Black Pen

You'll find that later on when you learn more, the endings of words will change, but I hope these examples will help.

I think he has simplified it for you. Colors can end with 'o', if you use them as adverbs: 'zielono pomalowany dom', niebiesko zabarwiony napój, or if you use them in compound words like: biało-czerwona flaga, niebiesko-czarny szalik.

Mocha,
adjectives do not end in o
please commit that to memory

It takes time! Polish grammar is hardly intuitive, its idiocyncrasies not always transparent to natives much less foreigners:-)
Don't throw in the towel though! Slog on and review, review, REVIEW......

Exactly my point!
Native speakers have memorized it cold. Most of them can't tell you why a certain grammatical rule applies they simply shrug their shoulders and say "bo tak jest".

Lol
such is the agony of grammar for the newbie
Slog on Mochadot18!
You have our undying support :)

The most in-depth contemporary "brick-and-mortar" Polish grammar I've ever seen in English remains "Polish: A Comprehensive Grammar" - 2012 by Iwona Sadowska, both in paper as well as hardback, published (naturally!) by Routledge Press, London:-) An older reference grammar by Brooks from the 70's put out by Mouton, The Hague, is long since out of print, only in a hardcover edition, I believe, but a wee bit academic, therefore, less practical.

This newer one has umpteen charts and declension tables, though slightly less info on verbal aspects than I would've liked.