When would one use nowy and when would he use nowego?

Hi everyone!
Could you please illustrate when I would use nowy and when I would use nowego?

EDIT: I accidentally posted in the wrong forum. Apologies.

"NowEGO" is the standard genitive/accusative form of "nowy" in the masculine LIVING HUMAN for all such instances where the noun requires it. It can also be used in the neuter gender.

Co nowEGO? = What's up? (genitive neuter)
Widzę mojEGO nowEGO przyjacielU. = I see my new friend. (accusative virile animate noun "przyjaciel", requiring genitive case endings!)

-LA

you really should stay away from these types of threads, Lyzko. you constantly make grammatical errors when trying to provide examples. no offense dude, but seriously, every time you type something while tryping to help someone out, somebody else needs to correct your polish grammar.

Shapeshifter wrote:


i'll tell it to you straight, Shapeshifter. based on this question, you haven't even begun to understand polish grammar, therefore, you're asking the wrong question. you're so far behind that you wouldn't even understand the explanation.

The endings of polish nouns, pronouns and adjectives change depending on the part they play in the sentence. The form of the word you find in the dictionary is called the nominative case and is used for the subject of the sentence. The direct object of the sentence uses the accusative case. To answer your question, we need to mention another case, called the genitive, whose basic function is to express composition or possession ("of" in English), but in some ways overlaps with the accusative.

So nowy, "new" has nominative nowy, accusative nowy, genitive nowego.
samochód, "car" has nominative samochód, accusative samochód and genitive samochodu

Mam nowy samochód. "I have a new car" nowy samochód is accusative because it is the direct object of the sentence.

Koszt nowego samochodu to 50 000 złotych "The cost of the new car is 50 000 zlotys" nowego samochodu is genitive because we are talking about the cost of the new car.

So far, so good. Things start to get more interesting when you want to negate the first sentence. For the direct object in a negated sentence, the genitive takes the place of the accusative

Nie mam nowego samochodu. "I don't have a new car."

Another way in which the genitive overlaps with the accusative is as follows. As we have just seen singular masculine nouns and their associated adjectives are identical in the accusative and nominative cases

if they refer to something which isn't alive(human or otherwise), desirable or interesting, when the accusative is identical to the genitive instead. Let's deal with "alive" (animate) first to show the general idea.

Kot "cat"
Mam nowego kota. "I've got a new cat" kota is still the direct object like samochód above, but because it's alive its accusative case endings are the same as the genitive.

When I said desirable and interesting things behave in the same way, I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it's true that there is a whole bunch of masculine nouns which behave as

if they refer to living objects. Examples are iPhones (mam nowego iPhone'a), mushrooms, makes of cigarettes and cars, waffles ...

Usually, virile animate nouns, e.g."przyjaciel" end in "a" for the genitive, this is true, whereas virile inanimate nouns, such as "ołówek" etc.. end in "u", although even Westphal isn't unanimous on this point! Even more confusing can be when "psy" (virile NON-HUMAN animate noun!!!) or "kot" etc.. use genitive endings in the accusative (Widzę psów.... vs. Widzę te psy....) and when not^^

Fuzz, I concede your point. Hopefully the Polish native speakers will regard the same degree of humility with respect to helping Poles with their EnglishLOL

The genitive of ołówek is ołówka.


For Sing., Gen = Acc - psa, kota. For Plural, its psów, kotów for the Gen. and psy, koty for the Acc., so it's nie ma psów - widzę psy.

Lyzko


Lyzko, you are conflating animate and virile. "Animate" applies in the singular. It takes in everything that is masculine and an animal (not just alive as I mistakenly said before) of some kind, human or not. There are also a lot of non-animal

things like iPhones and SMS messages that are also considered animate. The genitive ending of animate nouns is -a. The only exception to this rule as far as I know is for nouns like "dentysta" which are masuline but decline in the singular as if they were feminine. Non-animate masculine genitive singular endings can be either -a or -u.

"Virile" applies in the plural to nouns denoting male humans. It has its own endings for the nominative and the accusative endings are the same as the genitive. Non-human animals have the same endings in the accusative as in the nominative.

Thanks a bunch, both of you! Yes, I suppose I was "conflating" those issues, in fact. "Dentysta" though already ends in "a", so I guess then it doesn't change at all:-)

Lyzko


Yes it does:

dentysta Singular Plural
Nom. dentysta dentyści
Gen. dentysty dentystów
Dat. dentyście dentystom
Acc. dentystę dentystów
Instr. dentystą dentystami
Loc. dentyście dentystach
Voc. dentysto dentyści

Aha, not then too unlike "artyścia", yes?

Lyzko, you are a nice guy, and we all try to protect you and give you credits for your valiant efforts. But "artyścia"? Where on earth did you get it from?

n. artyst-a artyści
g. artyst-y artyst-ów
d. artyś-cie artyst-om
a. artyst-ę artyst-ów
i. artyst-ą artyst-ami
l. artyś-cie artyst-ach
v. artyst-o! artyści!

I simply meant a stem with "a", that's all.

Here's a joke which nicely illustrates some of the difficulties with Polish declensions:

Baca mówi do turysty:
- Zabiłem dzisiaj pięćdziesiąt ćmów!
- Baco, nie mówi się "ćmów" tylko "ciem".
- A kapciem!

you "concede" Lyzko, but what do I read in the very next post? Someone correcting your grammar. And then you kept on going. Gotta stop, holmes.


uhmm hmmm.

I'm all for £yżko's remarks on Polish grammar here. His "newly-created" forms illustrate quite well what difficulties a foreigner to the Polish language may encounter.

But Lyzko's case shows once again that there is no point in learning declensions per se or words in separation. In every language, Polish in particular, but perhaps English not so much, it is preferable to learn words with their contextual prepositions or in cliché terms, such as "artyści scen polskich". In such an example you'll have the plural nominative of 'artysta', the plural genitive of 'scena' and the plural genetive of the adjective 'polski'.

On the money as usual, Ziemowit! The question about English in comparison with Polish is evidence again that in the latter, the margin for error is far greater than in the former.

learning phrases is a good way to get some grammar to stick, as long as you eventually understand why it is in fact written that way. if all you do is cram phrases, you will be caught in a small bubble. when you are in conversation and need to use the word but in a different context, or a different quantity, you start scrambling.

Pattern recognition through reinforced "mental" drill in context, can't hurt either:-)

We call it book reading.
Seriously, this is how the patterns sink in. Although I have received a solid foundation in grammar and spelling in my primary school it was through novels I read that I gained my language confidence and quite extensive vocabulary.

I couldn't concur more! I always tell my students that the best (if not the only) way to acquire solid grammar skill/sentence structure, above all, a well-honed vocabulary, is by reading as much classic writing as well as higher-level journals, e.g. The London Times, NYT etc. as they can:-)

I concur with it wholeheartedly. But nonetheless, could you please explain in more detail what you mean by "reinforced 'mental' drill in context"?

I simply mean the discipline of repetition, wherein the structure(s) in question can best be internalized. Name declensions for instance can either be memorized from a list or gleaned from absorption through reading. Both work, though in very different ways:-)