Posts tagged w/ cases

Who’s Who in the Family

Posted by Anna Ikeda
May
22
2009

Today’s post is about something that even I have problems with. Brother’s wife wife’s brother and sister’s husband and husband’s sister and sister’s daughter’s best friend’s neighbor’s son. Or something like that.

Either I’m monumentally stupid, or it’s really easy in English. Just stick “in-law” at the end of anything you’re not quite sure of (when talking about the “other” side of the family) and voila, your work there is done. So, whether you’re talking about your wife’s sister or your brother’s wife, you simply say “my sister in-law”, right?

Well, it’s not quite so easy in Polish (why would it, it’s Polish after all!) and all these people have their own individual names.
So, to be sure I get it right (because I hardly ever get it right) I consulted a book and my aunt. And while sometimes even Polish dictionaries can’t agree on what is correct, I know for a fact that my aunt is never wrong.

OK, so here’s the list (according to the book and my aunt):

  • brother’s wife – żona brata – bratowa
  • sister’s husband – mąż siostry – szwagier
  • wife’s brother – brat żony – szwagier
  • wife’s sister – siostra żony – szwagierka
  • husband’s sister – siostra męża – szwagierka

And there’s more:

  • sister’s daughter – córka siostry – siostrzenica
  • brother’s daughter – córka brata – bratanica
  • sister’s son – syn siostry – siostrzeniec
  • brother’s son – syn brata – bratanek

And now for the fun part, because we all love our in-laws, right?

  • daughter’s husband – mąż córki – zięć
  • son’s wife – żona syna – synowa

and

  • wife’s (or husband’s) father – ojciec żony (lub męża) – teść
  • wife’s (or husband’s) mother – matka żony (lub męża) – teściowa

When it comes to people like mother’s brother or father’s brother, back in the olden days (like about 20 years ago) they were called “wuj” and “stryj” respectively. But now, they’re just called “wuj”, or diminutively “wujek”, regardless of whose brothers they are.

And how for example would my father refer to my husband’s father in Polish? I have no idea. My dad has no idea either. He just said “father of my son-in-law” (ojciec mojego zięcia). Hey, works for me!

PS. And just to see if you remember your noun cases, can you tell which one we’ve been using today to describe all these people?

 
Posted under Grammar, Polish Language, Vocabulary
Tagged with , , , , , , , 		6 Comments | Post a Comment

Readers’ Questions - “bez” and “nie”

Posted by Anna Ikeda
May
4
2009

Yesterday was a public holiday in Poland to celebrate the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791 (Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja). And it made me realize that I didn’t really know all that much about this historical event. So off to google I went. And what did I learn? A whole bunch of really boring historical bits of which only this stuck in my head – that the the Constitution remained in effect for only a year before being overthrown. Hmmm… not a very good track record. When I told my husband, he asked, “And you guys celebrate THAT?” But he did say it was a curious coincidence that Japan also celebrates its Constitution Day on May 3rd.

But let’s move on to more exciting stuff. Warning, warning - grammar ahead!

One of our readers here (hi Bea!) sent an email with a somewhat confusing question:
You quoted “bez wizy” meaning “without a visa”.  This sentence doesn’t require “nie“?

No, it doesn’t require “nie”, because if you are saying that you are without something, that’s all you need to say. That’s how it works in English and luckily it’s almost exactly the same in Polish. I say “almost” because Polish nouns have cases.
So, we say:

  • bez wizy – without a visa, in this context also “no visa necessary”

Want more examples? No problem. Take a look:

  • bez pieniędzy – without money,

For example:
Przyszedł tutaj bez pieniędzy. – He showed here up without money.

  • bez namysłu – without thinking.

For example:
Bez namysłu dalam mu pieniądze. – Without thinking, I gave him money.

  • bez mleka – without milk

Kawę bez mleka proszę. – Coffee without milk, please.

  • bez męża – without (here we stick a possessive pronoun/adjective in English) husband

Przyjechałam do Polski bez męża. – I came to Poland without my husband.

And what can you tell me about the nouns that follow “bez”? Can you guess which case this is? Of course you can! And you don’t even need to guess, because I’m sure you know it already!
Dopełniacz (genitive) - we covered it a while back, remember? Just put “genitive” in the blog’s search box and you should get a list of previous posts on this case.

  • mąż (husband) – nominative, męża – genitive (sounds like accusative, but in this case it’s the genitive we want, trust me)
  • mleko (milk) – nominative, mleka – genitive
  • pieniądze (money, this is plural in Polish) – nominative, pieniędzy – genitive
  • wiza (visa) – nominative, wizy – genitive

See, it wasn’t all that difficult, now was it?

 
Posted under Grammar, History
Tagged with , , , , 		2 Comments | Post a Comment

Cardinal Numbers

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Mar
4
2009

The post where I attempted to count priests (is it “dwaj księża” or “dwóch księży”?) made me realize that we’ve never talked about numbers before. Hmmm… I wonder why I’ve been avoiding this particular topic. Really, no reason at all.
Yeah, right!

Ok, in that case, let’s get started.

I’m sure that most, if not all of you, know the simple jeden, dwa, trzy, cztery, etc already.
The good news that these simple, straightforward numbers are super easy. The bad news is that these simple, straightforward numbers are only used in algebra and accounting.

In normal conversations these simple, straightforward numbers morph into more complicated forms.

But first things first. What you need to remember is that numbers in Polish must agree in gender and case with the nouns that follow them. Yeah, yeah, they decline. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

So, let’s get some examples:

masculine personal noun:

  • mężczyzna – a man
  • jeden mężczyzna – one man
  • dwaj mężczyźni – two men
  • trzej mężczyźni – three men
  • czterej mężczyźni – four men

but:

  • pięciu mężczyzn – five men

See what happened with the noun here? Instead staying in Nominative, the case changed to… yeah, changed to what? It may look like it’s Genitive, but on closer inspection it seems to be Accusative. And to confuse the matters even further, regardless of what it seems, it’s used just like your regular, standard issue Nominative.

masculine non-personal noun:

  • pies – a dog
  • jeden pies– one dog
  • dwa psy – two dogs
  • trzy psy– three dogs
  • cztery psy – four dogs

but:

  • pięć psów – five dogs

Same thing here. You hit five and stuff happens.
Let’s see how it looks with a feminine noun:

feminine noun:

  • kobieta – a woman
  • jedna kobieta – one woman
  • dwie kobiety – two women
  • trzy kobiety – three women
  • cztery kobiety – four women

but:

  • pięć kobiet - five women

Woohoo! Here we go again. It’s the number five curse.

And one more left-
neuter noun:

  • jajko – an egg
  • jedno jajko – one egg
  • dwa jajka – two eggs
  • trzy jajka – three eggs
  • cztery jajka – four eggs

but

  • pięć jajek – five eggs

However, that’s not exactly totally true when it comes to neuter nouns. Dziecko (a child) is also a neuter noun. But strange things happen to it when you try to count those kids:

  • jedno dziecko – one child

but

  • dwoje dzieci – two children
  • troje dzieci – three children
  • czworo dzieci – four children
  • pięcioro dzieci – five children

See? Those pesky children – dzieci – stay the same no matter the number.

And what happens when you get to numbers above five? They still follow the same Accusative-like pattern.

And some important grammatical terms:

  • liczebnik (masc., pl. liczebniki) – numeral (number)
  • liczebnik główny – cardinal number
  • liczebnik porządkowy – ordinal number

This post should keep you busy counting various things at least until next week.
I am moving and will be bez internetu (without internet) until March 11th.
I will try to keep an eye on you and respond to comments from a cybercafe, or somesuch. (That is, if I manage to dig myself out from under all these boxes first!)

In the meantime, take care and do zobaczenia wkrótce (see you soon)!

 
Posted under Grammar, Vocabulary
Tagged with , , , , , , 		8 Comments | Post a Comment

The Dative, part 3

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Nov
19
2008

It’s been a while, a looong while actually, since our last post about nouns and cases. I think I started telling you about the dative case and then promptly began to practice avoidance. So where were we last? Oh yes, personal pronouns and indirect objects, me thinks.

So, let’s quickly go back and review. I told you that the dative case is used to modify personal pronouns and I showed you how it’s used in examples where the sentences did not have a specific subject and the dative case was used after the verb “to be” in its many different forms and tenses, such as here:

The word “zimno” is an adverb, of course. And there is a whole slew of adverbs used in impersonal “adverbial” expressions, which describe feelings and sensations. And all those expressions, needless to say, use the dative case.

I gave you one example last time, remember?

Here “przykro” is our adverb of choice. But wait, there’s a whole list of those adverbs that tend to go together with the dative.

  • gorąco – hot, as in – Jest mi gorąco. – I’m hot.
  • łatwo – easy – Nie jest nam tak łatwo. – It’s not so easy for us, as in “we can’t make ends meet,” for example. Incidentally, I heard that phrase from almost every person I spoke to in Poland during my trip.
  • miło – nice – Bardzo mi miło. - Used normally when someone’s introduced to you, as in “Nice to meet you” with the “meet you” implied.
  • smutno – sad – Jest jej smutno. – She feels sad.

And so on…

And I think I also briefly touched on the subject of indirect objects. Now, that sounded a bit weird, didn’t it? “The subject of objects…” Anyway…
You see, in Polish all noun cases have certain questions assigned to them. For the dative, these questions are:

These questions are a sure giveaway that the case you need is the dative and that it describes either a recipient of something, or a person to whom something was/is/will be said. Complicated? Nah, only a little. These examples should make it a bit easier:

Nominative: mój tata – my dad
Dative – mojemu tacie
Here, the dad is the recipient of my help.

Nominative – Jacek (a guy’s first name)
Dative – Jackowi
Here, Jacek from Olsztyn is the beneficiary of our action.
In the Polish sentence above, the possessive “our” is implied and understood, so everybody knows we’re talking about selling “nasze mieszkanie” – “our apartment” and not somebody else’s.

Nominative – sąsiadka – neighbor (female)
Dative – sąsiadce
Here our female neighbor (sąsiadka) is the recipient of the keys.

So, we can say that the dative case is normally used when you have a verb that requires you to have someone as a beneficiary of your action, for example:

And so on… and the noun (or a personal pronoun) following such a verb will most likely be in the dative case.

To be continued…

 
Posted under Grammar
Tagged with , , , , , 		2 Comments | Post a Comment

Dative Case, part 2

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
21
2008

After studying Fran’s wonderful poem in the last post, you should know a little bit about the dative case (celownik) already. It’s a very unassuming case, really. And when you see it in a sentence, it will be most likely used to modify a personal pronoun in expressions like these:

  • Jest mi gorąco. – I am hot (as in, the temperature is so high that I’m sweating)

“Mi” in that sentence is in the dative case. And of course, as you’ve already probably figured out, it’s the personal pronoun “I” – “ja”, which as almost everything else in Polish, also declines.

The same happens in these examples, but with different words, naturally:

Here “nam” is in the dative case. And yes, in the nominative version it would be “we” – “my”.

“Wam” is the dative form of plural “you” – “wy”.

So, I think I should use this lovely dative excuse and show you all the other personal pronouns, as well. Let’s go!

  • ja – I
  • ty – you
  • on- he
  • ona – she
  • ono – it

And now in plural:

  • my – we
  • wy – you plural
  • oni – they masculine and mixed gender
  • one – they feminine and neuter

You may have also noticed that unlike in English, the word “ja” (“I”) is not capitalized in Polish. Instead, when writing to somebody, both in personal and official correspondence, Poles capitalize the word “ty” (“you”) in all its permutations. And yes, if talking to more than one “you”, the word “wy” is capitalized, as well. It’s done to be polite, and other than that, has no other stylistic function. You can tell a Polish speaker writing in English by the fact that he or she will most likely stubbornly write “you” with the capital letter.

But enough of this digression. Let’s get back to the dative case and see how those personal pronouns would look then. You already have some examples above, and here’s a complete list:

See, it wasn’t so bad. One use of the dative case and a whole stack of Polish personal pronouns is what you get today. Next time we will talk about something more exciting – I’m planning to make a typical Polish cheesecake!

 
Posted under Grammar
Tagged with , , , 		1 Comment | Post a Comment