"to be" (e.g. 'be yourself')

How would you say "be yourself" I might just be spelling it wrong, I'm still learning all the rules. is it "Bęć siebie?" it looks wrong.

bądź sobą

wow, way off.

this is confusing because words like pisać are: –szę -szesz, and since "be" is być it seems to translate differently. any idea why?

here is the full sentance I'm trying to translate. I'm doing random stuff to learn better.

Przede wszystkim bądź wiernym sobą, jeśli nie da się w to swoje serce, odejć
Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.

if you have any critique this would be great.

Sorry, I should have written:

być sobą - that's the infinitive

but I'm not a teacher, so hopefully there will be someone on here who can give you more comprehensive answer

Przede wszystkim bądź wierny sobie, jeśli nie potrafisz włożyć w to swoje serce to odejdź.


Być is not a regular verb.
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/by%C4%87

no: swoje serce

should be: swojego serca

That would be right if I said "włożyć odrobinę swojego serca"

you can say "możesz włożyć w to serce", but "nie możesz włożyć w to serca"

Try to concentrate and read again.

i don't need to concentrate, i'm telling you how it is.

nie możesz włożyć w to (kogo? czego? - genitive) serca
możesz włożyć w to (kogo? co? - accusative) serce

This one always kills me - when is a negative object kogo/czego and when isn't it (for example, because it's in a subordinate clause)?

Prima facie it should be here, right? - BUT I am deferring to you fine people because foreigners like me will always over-apply a rule when they don't have the full picture - and on this one, I don't.

The question, I guess, hinges on this: is the direct object of nie potrafisz the verbal clause włożyć [...] - which leaves swoje serce out of it - or does swoje serce or rather swojego serca 'inherit' the property of negative direct object from higher up the tree?

Does it make a difference what verb you use? Ie, potrafić is what you might call pseudomodal - therefore it doesn't throw the issue further down the chain - while chi's example uses móc - which is modal and therefore does?

Please, enlighten me - what's the score here?

And where I used "serca"? You can use it only with combination of "odrobinę".

I'm sorry, I can't explain it - I don't have teacher's competency but really hope that someone on here will explain it eventually. But I'm a native Polish speaker with a pretty good intuition when it comes to Polish (wish I had it when it comes to English! lol) and I know that it should be: nie potrafisz włożyć w to serca

Over-applying of rules is characteristic for foreign language learners, isn't it? I know it from my own experience. My "killers" are the perfect tenses and the definite/indefinite articles.

I remember once I said to a native English speaker that I "did" something. She said: "Oh, have you? So I asked her why had she used the perfect tense and she said:"Oh, have done or did - it's the same isn't it?" I startled. Thought: Please, after all these hours I spent with my book trying to understand the mystery of the perfect tense,don't tell me that it's THE SAME...!

:-))

In the affirmative, yes. Chi's example (perhaps a bit of a red herring in the current context, but never mind) was a negative sentence.

Does that not alter the situation in any way?

(PS not getting at you - just think maybe you're both approaching this from slightly different angles, whence the friction. Call it idiot foreigner's prerogative, if you like :))

Exactly, negation changes the case to Genitive.
potrafisz włożyć w to serce
potrafisz włożyć w to odrobinę serca

nie potrafisz włożyć w to serca/odrobiny serca

Negation always changes Accusative to Genitive.

I recently saw a Polish advertisement in 'Gazeta Wyborcza' for some such product (I really can't remember at this point!) 'BĄD- SWOJĄ PANIĄ!', which I take to mean 'BE YOUR OWN WOMAN!', or the like-:))

Any takers out there?LOL

"Bądź swoją Panią" actually means, more or less: "Be your own boss"

Cool! Many thanks there, Zman-:) Or how about "Take/Be in charge of yourself!"?

This is a bit complicated. What happens in this sentence:


is that the native speaker Bzibzioh replaces the genetive with an accusative in the negative sentence. I think she acts on the influence of the relatively recent phenomenon in Polish which is employing the accusative rather than the genetive with the verbs that in fact need the genetive in the affirmative statements. For example: 'ustąp mi miejsca' [genetive] may become 'ustąp mi miejsce' [accusative] in the speech of some native speakers. And although negation will change the accusative into the genetive back again even in those speakers who prefer the accusative in affirmation, Bzibzioh continues with the accusative in the negative, maybe because she is influenced by the the fact that the yet another verb which is 'potrafisz' comes before the verb 'włożyć' which makes her 'forget' about the particle 'nie'. Nevertheless, it is quite an interesting sentence which seems to have been uttered naturally and which seems to reflect the dominance of the accusative case over the genetive case in some native speakers.

This is my explanation. Anyway, I wonder what case would she employ if she were constructing the sentence without actually using the verb 'potrafisz' in it?

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at. Considerably less elegantly than you, of course :)

She would employ swojego serca.


Actually, she didn't give it much thought at all. She just improved the original translation of the OP as no previous posters bothered to do. Plus she suffers from pneumonia right now.

Seems to be getting popular your side of the pond. Take care, get well soon...

Thanks. I lost my voice, too. Makes my hubby very happy ;)