Do I have these Polish word cases right?

I hope this question isn't too basic for this forum, but Rosetta isn't much help with grammar so I'm trying to puzzle it out from a book. Could somebody just check that I've got the endings right on these? It's the feminine accusative case, singular and plural.

Duża piłka jest blisko domu.
Kobieta kupuje dużą piłkę.
Duży piłky są blisko domu.
Kobiety kupują duzy piłki.

Dobra czekolada jest czarna.
Kobieta ma czarną czekoladę.
Dobry czekolady są czarny.
Kobiety mają czarny czekolady.

A verification that I'm understanding the book right would be hugely helpful.

#3 Duże piłki
#4 duże piłki
#7 Dobre czekolady są czarne
#8 czarne czekolady

Rest OK.

Whoa, thank you! Man, I gotta get a better grammar book. Dielec's "Basic Polish" is too confusing.

Well.. you only made 1 mistake.

You used singular ending of adjectives even when it should be plural.

When the noun is in plural, the adjective must be as well.

(In nominative and accusative) all plural adjectives end in -e. So it's very easy.

For now.

One day kgoess will learn about "personal masculine" plural ending in -i or -y and the required consonant changes. But let's not scare him/her yet ;-)

if i may interject, the problem i am still having is understanding the secret of knowing which words go in which position. when i wantb to say something, when i write it or say it, the words are in the wrong position, which makes the grammar wrong. so i still cant get my head around understanding how i put this right. for example;

postawiła na stół bukiet ciętych róź.
she put a bouquet of cut roses on the table.
if i wanted to say that, as the words came to my mind, i would naturaly put;
ona włoźię bukiet na cięty kwiaty na stół.

but the grammer is wrong you will now say, so what is the secret or tool to help correct this.

chaza

the word order is perfectly fine - some grammar is not -
and the English 'of' preposition does not usually get translated in the form of a seperate word (as you have translated it into 'na' word) but influences the shape of Polish words it relates to in an English phrase - the 'of' preposition typically holds a notion that is outpictured by Polish 'genetive case' for nouns and adjectives (and pronouns - pronouns are words like mine, his, him, it, that etc)


the thing is 'postawiła bukiet ciętych róż na stół'- a completely English word order - is completely fine in Polish - perhaps it may not be the choice of order by most natives (without need for highlighting specific nuances of the meaning) but is an perfectly understandable just as the originally quoted sentence

A SECRET TOOL? - there's no such - it just needs a lot of learning i.e. some effort - actually using the language you learn in practice is best adviseable - practice makes you perfect and such :) - and you just need to get used that some (plenty of :) things are completely different to your preconceived notions in this new language you learn and you need to get used to them to get around the language (like this little thing that you don't get a translation of a word 'of' in Polish but a translation into a different grammatical concept )

or maybe there is a SECRET TOOL - that is not to try to learn too much at a time instead intensively working (from various approaches) on some well-defined subject (and then returning to it- like revisiting it - after some time)

i hear what you say gumishu
i have tried very hard to get the handle of this language, and it has occurred to me that i dont think i ever will. and the reason being all the idioms, i have spent all weekend looking at them and most dont make gramatical sense.one that caught me eye was ;

żyć nie umierać
which was supposed to mean ' heaven and earth.
why dont they just say that,
niebo i ziemia.
so i asked myself ' how hard was that' . and i just get blown away with it all, so i decided that what i know now can only get better, so i will stop working on it as hard as i have done, i just get more and more frustrated and achieve not a lot.

but thanks for your input.

chaza

There are not so many idioms after all, don't be scared by them.

Chaza,

I think you should take a regular class, and give up self teaching before you get frustrated and give up the language at all. I see self teaching doesn't work for you. You need someone (a good teacher) who will switch that little switch in you mind to change yor way of thinking. Dictionary won't do that.

Cinek

Or find different ways of self teaching.

Remember also that there is never a one-to-one correspondence between words in different languages. What there often is, is the correspondence of functions of words in a sentence.

"Chaza has an apple"

"Chaza" is the subject (who does)
"has" is the verb, or predicate (the action)
"an orange" is the object (what is being done).

Subject and object have different meanings, that is, functions in the sentence. Now in English you don't usually see the difference, as "an apple" can be both subject and object. But see the next example:

"Chaza kisses her"

"Chaza" subject
"kisses" predicate
"her" object

You don't say "Chaza kisses she".

In Polish it's the same. The subject is expressed in the nominative case "Chaza", then there is the verb, then there is the object, which is in the accusative case:

Chaza ma pomarańczę
Chaza całuje ją

There are many more possible functions. An example is what in English, I think, is called the indirect object (?): to whom?

Chaza gives an orange to Cinek.
Chaza daje pomarańczę Cinkowi.

Again you have Chaza (subject, who does), gives/daje (verb, the action), an orange/pomarańczę (the object) and now you have "to whom?", to Cinek/Cinkowi. "To whom?" in Polish is expressed by the dative case.

And so on, all different functions (when? with what? where?) have their own ways to be expressed in Polish, usually with a combination of a case and a preposition.

well leo
i was impressed by that simple explanation, you restored my faith. i will have another stab at it. the point here is, i have just met my extened family after the war, so clearly i want to comunicate with them. right now i am doing ok i think, but it all helps.

i do follow more clearly the ' who does, verb, to whom' method, i think lots opn this forum have been great with me, at times i think they would like me to have stiopped, so i do give my thanks to them all.

Not sure I deserve... anyways thanks :-)

Cinek

Hi gumishu et al.,

I'm busy learning loads of vocabulary for GCSE Polish. The only way I am (slowly) learning my case endings is by talking to natives. I'm currently buying a new house and have been trying to say 'I will get the keys on the 29 February'

I sort of managed to say it in Polish: 'Będę dostawał klucze od dwudziesty dzięwąty luty'

I was quickly corrected: 'luty' should be 'lutego' as it has to agree with the number 29th.. i think... AND, rather than 'bede dostawal' it should be 'dostanę'

I'm a tad confused as to why I can't say 'Bede dostawal' (i will get)... I was referring to my 301 verbs book and gathered this was correct - maybe I was wrong as this is in the Imperfective case?

Chrzaszcz

because you will get keys only once not several times.

but

Kredyt na dom będę dostawał w kilku transzach.
I will get mortgage (amount) in instalments.

Peter is correct. This has to do with perfective and imperfective verbs/ dokonany i niedokonany etc.

dostawać: imperfective
dostać: perfective.

This is a link to a dictionary that gives both perfective and imperfective forms of the verbs.

wordreference.com/plen/dosta%c4%87