When to use celownik (dative) in Polish language?

When should I use celownik?

You probably should never use the word 'celownik' when talking with Polish speakers. I found out from bitter experience that most of them confuse the names of the different cases.

I used to have these conversations (translated from Polish)

me: what's the dative of 'wuj'?
polish person: I think it's 'wuju'...? or is it wuja?....

what works is asking with kto/co

me: The word is 'wuj' and komu/czemu?
polish person: wujowi!

Wow, sounds almost like German! The average moderately educated person doesn't usually know from cases or case names per se, but rather from numbers, first case, second case, sometimes also "Who"? vs. "Whom"? etc.

:-)

Didn't realize it was nearly the same for Polish. Thanks there, Maf.

the numbers are also used, but again, I don't think most people really know them

in addition to the kto/co method, I'd also construct frames for asking specific forms, prepositions can work for some 'przeciw .......' is good for dative, and just asking for pięć ...... is good for genetive plural, I had a bunch of strategies for asking different cases, for an unambiguous few I could just produce two different hypothetical forms ( czy to z koniami czy z końmi?)

it was easier to ask for tense forms (though not necessarily perfective and imperfective forms....)

So...what does that mean...?

Can typical Yanks tell the definitions of when for instance use the past perfect continuous or somethin ? I guess all native speaker of any language just "feel" how to use it.

Refer to the reference grammar that I gave you a link to in the other thread. There is a very good treatment of all the cases in it.

The dative has the following main usages.

After verbs that govern the dative (as direct or indirect object). These include dać komuś coś (give someone(dative) something(acc)) ufać komuś (trust someone), wierzyć komuś (believe someone) and a few others.

With prepositions that govern the dative, the most common is przeciw(ko), there's also dzięki (thanks to) ku (toward - not that commonly used) and maybe a couple more

As the 'psychological subject' describing states that affect a person. In english you say 'I'm cold' in Polish that's 'zimno mi' (it's cold to me) because the cold is affecting you, there's also przykro mi (I'm sorry about that situation) smutno mi (it saddens me) and a few others

The book dominic pointed you to should also help

@DominicB most people understand the difference, but past continuous can sometimes be used interchangeably. Past continuous means that someone did something in the past for a time (maybe frequently or maybe intermittently), but don't do it anymore. Np. I was eating lunch. I ate (simple past) lunch. They mean essentially the same thing. It's also colloquial to say: "I used to clean my shoes." This means that I cleaned my shoes for a period of time in the past, but now I may not do it...Get it?

@BumSkillet

I think your last post was directed to G (undercover).

In any case, in order to understand Polish verbs, you will have to wrap your head around the idea of grammatical aspect. The reference grammar I gave you a link to has the best treatment of aspect that I have seen.

@Undercover, you're correct about that! Most Americans especially wouldn't know how to define a tense to some clueless foreigner if their life depended on it!