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A question about learning Polish Topic is solved

Zimozie
Finland

A question about learning Polish

Post by Zimozie »

Dzień dobry!

I made some searches on the internet and I found out that Polish has an irregular grammar. My question is here: when learning new Polish words, which noun cases in the singular and/or plural form should be learned? Or should I learn every noun with all the case endings both in singular and plural? If so, it would be a tough job.

I'm pretty new to Polish and I try to learn it. It would be really helpful if someone would explain me which declensions to learn by heart. You can also tell me if there are certain declination forms (in adjectives) or verb conjugations to learn in order to know how to use a learned word. In Russian, one should learn in regular verbs the 1. and 2. person singular conjugation and 3. person plural conjugation in order to know how to conjugate them properly, at least in the present tense.

Thank you! Dziękuję!

🇫🇮 native, 🇺🇲 C1-B2, 🇫🇷🇮🇱🇸🇪 B2-B1, 🇪🇸 B1-A2, 🇯🇴🇪🇪🇳🇴A2-A1, 🇷🇺🇺🇦🇬🇷🇨🇳 A1
Duolingo profile: https://duome.eu/zimozie77

Żar
Poland

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Żar »

Feminine nouns are almost always regular. Well, feminine nouns ending in consonants may have plural nominative/accusative -e (paproć-paprocie) or -i (nić-nici), but that’s a rare exception. Also ręka-ręce.

Neuter nouns are perhaps even more regular. As long as you don’t confuse the -mię nouns like imię/imiona with the -ię nouns like szczenię/szczenięta. Also oko-oczy, ucho-uszy.

Masculine nouns can be a bit trickier in a few cases, with singular genitive -a or -u, and singular dative -owi or -u. There may also be some irregularities in the plural nominative and genitive (mostly in nouns referring to humans, like oficer-oficerowie/oficerzy). There are also animacy distinctions in the accusative, which is a separate topic.

That still leaves many cases being very regular:

The plural dative is always -om.

The plural instrumental is always -ami except half a dozen nouns with -mi (ludźmi, braćmi, dziećmi, końmi, dłońmi, liśćmi), and three body parts which allow both -ami and the old dual form -oma/-yma (rękoma/rękami, oczyma/oczami, uszyma/uszami).

The plural locative is always -ach, if we ignore a few country names (Niemczech, Węgrzech, Włoszech).

The singular instrumental is always -em/-ą.

The singular locative and vocative also follow strict rules, with only a few exceptions (domu, synu, Boże).

There are also a few Latin neuter words like akwarium which are for some reason indeclinable in the singular but not in the plural (akwaria), and even use a seemingly masculine plural genitive ending (akwariów).

You generally only need to know the infinitive and first and second person singular of a verb (e.g. nieść-niosę-niesiesz), there’s only half a dozen irregular verbs where you might need to know the third person plural. The past tense is usually simple, but you have to keep in mind some vowel alternations (niósł-niosła-nieśli). Also the imperative might occasionally be slightly irregular.

Zimozie
Finland

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Zimozie »

Żar wrote: Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:26 pm

Feminine nouns are almost always regular. Well, feminine nouns ending in consonants may have plural nominative/accusative -e (paproć-paprocie) or -i (nić-nici), but that’s a rare exception. Also ręka-ręce.

Neuter nouns are perhaps even more regular. As long as you don’t confuse the -mię nouns like imię/imiona with the -ię nouns like szczenię/szczenięta. Also oko-oczy, ucho-uszy.

Masculine nouns can be a bit trickier in a few cases, with singular genitive -a or -u, and singular dative -owi or -u. There may also be some irregularities in the plural nominative and genitive (mostly in nouns referring to humans, like oficer-oficerowie/oficerzy). There are also animacy distinctions in the accusative, which is a separate topic.

That still leaves many cases being very regular:

The plural dative is always -om.

The plural instrumental is always -ami except half a dozen nouns with -mi (ludźmi, braćmi, dziećmi, końmi, dłońmi, liśćmi), and three body parts which allow both -ami and the old dual form -oma/-yma (rękoma/rękami, oczyma/oczami, uszyma/uszami).

The plural locative is always -ach, if we ignore a few country names (Niemczech, Węgrzech, Włoszech).

The singular instrumental is always -em/-ą.

The singular locative and vocative also follow strict rules, with only a few exceptions (domu, synu, Boże).

There are also a few Latin neuter words like akwarium which are for some reason indeclinable in the singular but not in the plural (akwaria), and even use a seemingly masculine plural genitive ending (akwariów).

You generally only need to know the infinitive and first and second person singular of a verb (e.g. nieść-niosę-niesiesz), there’s only half a dozen irregular verbs where you might need to know the third person plural. The past tense is usually simple, but you have to keep in mind some vowel alternations (niósł-niosła-nieśli). Also the imperative might occasionally be slightly irregular.

Thank you for your answer! So I should pay attention to the masculine nouns and learn them like this:

boy - chłopiec (gen. sing. chłopca, dat. sing. chłopcu; nom. pl. chłopcy, gen. pl. chłopów)

Right?

🇫🇮 native, 🇺🇲 C1-B2, 🇫🇷🇮🇱🇸🇪 B2-B1, 🇪🇸 B1-A2, 🇯🇴🇪🇪🇳🇴A2-A1, 🇷🇺🇺🇦🇬🇷🇨🇳 A1
Duolingo profile: https://duome.eu/zimozie77

User avatar
Dana_Dany Danuta
Poland

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Dana_Dany Danuta »

Native language: 🇵🇱 Duolingo levels

Be smart and write poems. :D

Żar
Poland

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Żar »

Yes. For example most -iec nouns have singular dative -owi, so in this case chłopiec is an exception. Human -iec nouns have nominative plural -y, but non-human -iec nouns have -e. The genitive singular is always -a for animate nouns, so in this case you don’t need to memorise it.

Also, since it’s a human masculine noun, accusative = genitive in both the singular and plural (chłopca, chłopców); for animals, accusative = genitive only in the singular (nosorożca, nosorożce); and for inanimate objects usually accusative = nominative in both the singular and plural (wieżowiec, wieżowce), but in that case there are some exceptions.

User avatar
Explorer
Portugal

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Explorer »

I have a silly question: is it possible to write Polish diacritics using an English keyboard?

🇬🇧 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 | Learning: 🇯🇵 |

User avatar
Stasia
Poland

Re: A question about learning Polish

Post by Stasia »

Explorer wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 9:28 pm

I have a silly queston: is it possible to write Polish diacritics using an English keyboard?

Yes. On my computer keyboard, I get them pressing Alt + letter (Alt + a to get ą, etc). It all depends on what keyboard you have installed. I switch between Polish keyboard which I keep for both Polish and English, and Spanish keyboard which I use for Spanish, French, and Quechua. Polish keyboard is compatible with the American physical keyboard layout. Spanish one has different placement of things like ():; and a few others, which I think is more compatible with the standard Western European physical keyboard.

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

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