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- "On jest mężczyzną."
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Apparently, Polish (among some other Slavic languages) use the instrumental case with "to be" and "to become".
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases#Instrumental
The use of Instrumental in this sentence is kind of weird for Russian. 'To be' can take Instrumental, and, now that I think of it, it only doesn't take instrumental in the Present-Tense Indicative-Mood forms, where it has to be Nominative.
Taking the Wikipedia examples, this:
To jest moja żona. - This is my wife.
is the only construction you can use in this situation in Russian (although it would be Instrumental in Past/Future Indicative, in Conditional and Imperative). It might have something to do with the fact that 'to be' is almost always omitted in the Present Tense in Russian.
911
No, it's not the only constriction you can use in this situation in Russian.
Он является мужчиной.
This is Present Tense + Instrumental
- 1115
Правда? Does this have a slightly different meaning or nuance from either "Он - человек" or "Он мужской" ? I don't remember this expression as being in common usage.
It is very formal, so «он является мужчиной» is not a great example, but otherwise it is rather common legalese.
Also, it’s «он — мужчина», not «*он мужской».
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It is realy hard to understand for people who are not from Poland or it is sometimes even hard for Polish people
I see the word and I read it... But I can make no connection between them! Just wow...
They will probably supply it with time. It is in beta now and a lot of corrections are necessary at such a stage. It will be easier, when you learn how to pronounce individual sounds. Believe it or not, we write word as we can hear them in Polish. You just have to know what represents what. "ę" and "ą" are pretty easy, if you know French, as they are longer versions of two French sounds. "ż" is a bit like "s" in leisure, and "cz" is like "ch" in champ. Good luck!
Sorry, I made a mistake in my post, it was late and I was tired. Now it has been edited. So "cz" is pronounced like ch in champ, while ch is pronounced like normal h. (there is, theoretically, a small difference, but people do not differentiate it anymore; it is the same with u and ó - they used to sound a bit different, but now people pronounce them the same way). It is tricky to describe "dz" - it is as if you wanted to pronounce d and z at the same time. The pronunciation of "ds" in the word "lads" comes very close to it. Check this out to get some idea (w is pronounced like v) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pl-dzwon-2.ogg
While 'ch' and 'h' are indeed pronounced the same in (most dialiects of) Polish, that sound is not the same as the English 'h'. It's like the Yiddish 'chutzpah' or the Scots 'loch.'
In response to the question "Isn't the Scottish ch more throaty?" (which for me is too deep in the reply chain to have a "Reply" button).
In my admittedly limited experience, that tends to get exaggerated. It's easy to overdo and sound like you're coughing something up.
In any case, the point is that the sound is produced by approaching the roof of the mouth with the back of the tongue (whereas the English 'h' uses the front for words like "huge", and an open, breathy sound for words like "hat").
Wikipedia has a thorough article about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative
No problem at all, good luck! :) BTW, about the way we write words as we read them. There are several exceptions to this rule, only several ones, I believe, e.g. word with "auto" (u is pronounced like "ł", which is pronounced almost like English "w"). We have ortography variants which both sound the same these days, unless you are an actor from the old school, and while they are written as they are spoken, you just have to learn when a particular variant is used. There are rules for their usage in most cases, they just have to be memorized, but this is important only in writing, naturally. A lot of people in Poland have problems with it and generally the more you read, the better you write. Only in a selected number on cases it can influence the meaning, e.g. żyć (to live) and rzyć (old-fashioned, vulgar and not used anymore -a person's behind) sound the same. But do not worry about it, it just try to learn the word's spelling as you learn them and the rest comes with reading. I have also found a decent webpage that might be useful to you and to others too http://grzegorj.w.interiowo.pl/gram/en/gram00.html
Ohhhhhh you know what? I was thinking of "dzie," which I think is nearly equivalent to "dż." My mistake.
It is interesting) Вот такие у нас славянские языки - В предложении порядок слов не соблюдается, а смысл предложения передается окончаниями (падежами) (Here are our Slavic languages-in the sentence the word order is not observed, and the meaning of the sentence is transmitted by the endings (cases)
Polish language will have different forms of verbs for different persons, which is obviously not usually present in English, although it is with this particular verb: I am vs He is. And "jestem" is exactly "(I) am", while "jest" = "(he/she/it) is". Because of this conjugation, the personal pronoun is very often dropped, because the form of the verb makes it quite obvious what person we are talking about.
Check wiktionary for more details.
Jestem - is normally when you're talking about yourself. Means " I am"
Jest - Normally used when speaking about other people , Can be used for "She/he is"
Can someone give me link where the pronounciation of this language is explained?
Must we use "On" in this case, or can we simply say, "Jest mężczyzną"?
It is more natural with "on". In the third person we omit personal pronouns only in very specific situation, e.g. when we stress something or the person is mentioned in the preceeding sentence.
Normally we accept both 'a' and 'the', but here... well, I don't see a reason for any native English speaker to say "He is the man" unless it's "He's the man!" as in "This guy rules!"
Well, or maybe in context you were talking about a man, and now you're saying that he's that one.
In any case, if you say "He is the man" in Englsh, the emphasis of "the" is probably on the fact that you're being specific, when lots of people are men. Those are the cases where Polish is more apt to say "On jest ten mężczyzna" (he is that man).
Okay, I guess it won't hurt to accept "the man". But mostly it will be "He is this/that man" (On jest tym mężczyzną) both in timstellmach's and Rae.F's comments. Anyway, added.
On jest mężczyzną - He is a man
("He is the man" makes no sense)
(On) jest tym mężczyzną - He is the man
He is a man (one of many) - (On) Jest mężczyzną
(jednym z wielu mężczyzn, jakimś, którymkolwiek)
He is the man (you are looking for, the one and only)! -
(On) Jest tym mężczyzną (którego szukasz, jedynym)!
ą is pronounced with a nasal sound like the French "on".
This link explains why the noun is declined into the instrumental case:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases#Instrumental
This link explains how to decline different nouns into the instrumental case:
http://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/instrumental/
Hi! Why is different...mężczyzna and mężczyzną? Why the last letter (a - ą) changes? I can't understand...please help me....
As usual... cases. "mężczyzna" is Nominative, so it's the basic - dictionary - form. "mężczyzną" is Instrumental.
The main usage of Nominative is as the subject of the sentence, on in a sentence like "X to Y" where both X and Y are in Nominative.
The main usage for Instrumental is in sentences like "X + a form of 'to be' + Y", where Y is in Instrumental (if it's a noun phrase).
More information here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16373167
It confuses me. In Czech (my native language) "jest" is an archaic form of "he is" and "je" is the today's form. And "he is eating" is "jí"
Sounds like mezhtuzna. Is it supposed to sound like t mezvTuzna? Is the c pronounced as a t?
Technically you don't have "c" here. It's a part of "cz". Roughly the first sound in "charm". Often transcribed into English as 'tsch'.
So... "meushtschyznou", if I were to adapt it to English speakers... only that Polish 'y' doesn't have a good equivalent, I think.
Потому что ещё никто не создал такого курса... большинство языков можна изучать только с английского.
For a noun phrase, yes. But if you just had a standalone adjective, then it stays in the case the rest of the sentence needs (usually Nominative).
Would a good reasoning for use of the instrumental case here be "I exist by means of a man?"
There is reasoning that noun in Instrumental is a complement of the verb "być" and noun in Nominative is a subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_%28linguistics%29#Slavic
Well, "he", not "I", but as it was explained to me, think of it as kind of like "He exists in the manner of a man."
Seriously what is with this spelling that doesn't sound like the pronunciation. I mean there is no "nung" in mezczyzna. Ugh, I started this course because I'm heavily (American) Polish, but the language seems to make no sense. Doubting the language. Should I keep going?
The Polish language was shoehorned into the Latin alphabet, so they devised a lot of spelling rules you won't have ever seen before. But it is very regular. Polish can be fiendish for other reasons, but the spelling is actually going to be one of the lesser problems.
The "nung" is in the "ę," by the way. The "e" (without an ogonek) would indeed not have that sound (and parenthetically, one of the few irregularities in Polish spelling is that a final "ę" is pronounced like "e").
Keep trying for a little. With spelling it should get easier. It is very regular but different from what you are used to.
Here is a short guide to Polish pronunciation.
Does anyone have a link that can explain the instrumental case to me that is not wikipiedia or a wikibook? (I'm sorry if i spelled those two things wrong, I don't normaly spell them because I dont trust them)
What about Wiktionary? They are created by volunteers but it doesn't mean that they aren't valuable and informative. There are strict requirements and indications for creating articles so that they are as good as possible. And if it is possible, they should be based on other sources and contain references. Entries are usually created by several different persons who review each other. It is not always easy to establish a single version so there may be some editorial clashes but after all, I don't think that there is a better site that contains compilation of various different sources describing how some concepts or events are viewed from different perspectives. Of course, there may appear some errors but where they don't appear? Also, if you see some mistake, you can always fix it.
Here you have some links: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23557369:
That can be enough, especially if that makes a real word that is the wrong translation.
The correction algorithm is programmed by the site devs. It's not a matter of the course contributors keeping a list of acceptable and unacceptable typos.
Hey guys! I was going to read up an article on the Instrumental case (which, after learning Romance languages for so long is a completely foreign concept to me) but is there anyone here who could explain it instead? Thanks!!
In general, you can think of the instrumental case as marking the instrument that was used to do a thing. "I hit the ball with the bat." If English had the instrumental case, "the bat" would be marked that way.
Usually, anything that comes after a copula like "to be" is in the nominative, so Polish is slightly unusual in its use of the instrumental case in this context. The way it was explained to me, think of it as "He does his be-ing in the manner of a man." That's not really the best way to convey the instrumental case, but it's the closest we can come in English and still have it make any kind of sense. Perhaps "He exists with manhood" or "He exists by means of manhood".
But that kind of stretches English-language sensibilities, so you just need to remember that Polish uses the instrumental case after "to be" and "to become".
Now go read some articles on the topic! :)
I could be saying it wrong but ive been pronouncing this like "jiff-jan-ikka"
I'd transcribe it as "jiev-chyn-ka". At least lose the 'i' in the last part, that could make the word unrecognizable.
