"Ona jest kobietą."
Translation:She is a woman.
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How come the 'ą' makes am 'ouw' sound? Does this mean that the 'ę' makes a similar sound as well?
I see that you learn Brazilian Portuguese so remember that: Polish "ą" is similar to Brazilian "om" in "bom" and Polish "ę" is similar to Brazilian "en" in "quente".
OK, thanks, you are right, I edited my last answer giving some better example ("en" in "quente").
Desculpe. Você tem razão. Isso foi um erro. Aquela resposta é muito velha, então agora não lembro porque dei este exemplo. Provavelmente pensei sobre "sentou", mas esta palavra não tem este sonido nasal. Talvez o melhor exemplo é "quente", então "reparei" a minha resposta. Obrigado pela tua vigilância. :)
e-hook and a-hook are (usually) nasalized. E-hook, however, sounds just like e at the end of a word.
ę in the middle of a word will make an "en" sound. At the end of the word it's often said much closer to just a regular e. In fact, you're probably better off pronouncing it as a regular e at the end of words. It's very subtle.
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Just imagine all instances of "-ę" as sounding like "-en" and all of "-ą" as "-on"/"-om" and it becomes very simplified. It's just a nasalization (except for word-final "ę" like cwks-legia pointed out just sounds "normal" to an English speaker)
"ą" it's like "on" in French -> Japon (Japan) un pont (a bridge) "ę" it's like "in" or "ain" in French-> le pain (bread) la fin (the end)
The "woman" would be in nominative in Slovak in this sentence, not in instrumental...that's weird, I thought the cases would be the same since our languages are so close :) Haha and I thought this would be easy for me! :D
"Ona je žena." But actually, I read a comment in a different discussion that explained Polish cases in more detail and said that instrumental (with the questions "kim?" & "czym?") can be used to express who you are - as in "Who am I?". And I realized that you could actually say that in Slovak using instrumental too ("Ona je ženou."), and it is absolutely correct, it's just not at all common because we would only use it as an answer to a specific question - which is probably the reason it didn't come to my mind immediately. Funny :)
Does the name in predicative position (copula) take the instrumental case ?
Yes, all "Y-nouns" in sentences like: "X-noun is Y-noun" or "X-personal pronoun is Y-noun" take this case.
I noticed there was an exception listed for "To jest...." or "This is..." which still takes nominative. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases
Yes, you are right. As I wrote - it only works with nouns and personal pronouns, while "Y-nouns" in sentences like "X-demonstrative is Y-noun" take the nominative case, so "Ja jestem kobietą", but "To jest kobieta".
Feminine, singular nouns (they mostly end with "-a") get this ending in Instrumental Case. Just change "a" for "ą" and that's it ;)
Thanks. I've also noticed that it's the same with masculine nouns. Is that correct?
Exactly. For every singular noun ending with "-a" this is the rule. I cannot recall any exception for this.
This is the Basics and we're learning a new case already? Wow, go big or go home, I guess.
How do you differentiate between indefinite and definite articles in Polish? My guess is context.
Yup. There are no articles in Polish, it's just an unknown concept. You can only differentiate by context. Also, sometimes you may assume that "the" has basically the same meaning as "this" and therefore you can use a form of "ten".
Instrumental case. If you have a sentence "subject is something" you have to use that case, and "-a" becomes "-ą".
Whenever you "rename" something it is always instrumental. She is "renamed" a woman in this case.
It depends how you translate "it". You have two ways:
"to" - undefined subject, nominative (Czy to jest mundur?) or instrumental (Czy to jest mundurem?)
"ono" - defined subject (as I, you, he), instrumental (Czy ono jest mundurem?)
I'm confused. I cant seem to get the difference between 'jestem' and 'jest'. Could anybody explain
Why is it sometimes spelt "kobieta" or "kobietą". The same i have seen with "mężczyzna" and "mężczyzną". Is there a difference??
They're in a different case. Polish has multiple cases used for different scenarios, and the one ending with "-ą" is instrumental.
Why is the instrumental case used for kobieta... I wanted to put an accent on the -a but for some reason my keyboard did not have that accent
Instrumental case is used whenever something is "renamed" to something else. So "she" is being renamed to "a woman".
Is it not also used when the noun is being used to preform an action like "I run with my feet"
In this case the verb "z" or "with" is an instrumental case verb so yes.
It's actually pretty simple. „Jestem” is used in first person (when you are talking about yourself) and „jest” in third person.
Must have been a bug, this is obviously not only correct but even the best translation.
I still don't understand the differences in the way kobieta is written, or the other word (the one for man, I don't know how to spell it yet.), but would jestem be for self-reference, (i, me, that stuff?), and jest for third person?
In Polish every grammatical person has their own form of a verb. "jestem" is for 1st person singular. "jest" is for 3rd person singular.
Right now you know "kobieta" (Nominative = the basic, dictionary form. Mostly used as the subject of the sentence) and "kobietą" (Instrumental). Sentences like "I am Y" or "She is Y" take Instrumental (if Y is a noun phrase). I guess you might have seen "kobietę" as well, that's Accusative. Generally Accusative is used for the direct object of the sentence. Almost all verbs encountered in the beginning of this course take Accusative.
Is there any relation between instrumental in copula and animated nouns? Or must instrumental always be used in copula? An weird example with the inanimated noun jabłko: Ja jestem jabłkiem.
"Ja jestem jabłkiem" is correct grammatically, although of course absurd semantically. A noun phrase "Y" in such a sentence (X is Y, when X is either a noun phrase or a personal pronoun) always takes Instrumental. Whether the noun phrase is animate or not doesn't matter.
I'm new at this. I don't get why "A woman" is kobieta, but "She is a woman" is kobietą.
Why "kobietą" not kobieta ? After i back to odmian.net i found it in an instrumental case?? Anyone can explain or correct me ?? Thanks
That's all right. In Polish when you use the verb "być" (jest) with a noun after it, that noun is in instrumental case.
It’s very wrong, as ending -em you have used is for masculine nouns.
So you can use it for a word like kot (a cat)
And you can say:
“On jest kotem” ( he is a cat)
But in our sentence it has to be:
„kobietą”
To add: this would be fine if the basic form of the noun for a woman was "kobiet" and it was a masculine noun. But well, none of that is true.
(To JAndrzej) I think you were almost right. The sound of Ą is like the Portuguese (you musntn't use 'Brazilian', the european has (in this case) the same pronunciation) Õ (Like the prnunciation of "balÕes", but the "õE" makes a /õj̃/, and also you have to pronunciate it with the mouth more open (I don't know if 'more open' is right, but...) an Ę is like in 'em', but also "more open" and without the (nasalised) palatal approximant (j) pronunciation. Also, I think "sentu" isn't a word. Maybe you were talking about "cento"... Types from a Brazilian! Hope I helped you!
Well, "female" is sometimes acceptable, although quite... technical.
"kobietą" for sure will not be "women".
"kobiety" may be "women" (Nominative/Accusative) or "woman" (Genitive).
"kobieta" is Nominative (the basic form), used mostly as the subject of the sentence.
"kobietą" is Instrumental, used mostly after "z" ("with") and in sentences like this one.
I can feel your pain. It is hard at the beginning.
"she is a woman" ---> "ona jest kobietą"
"I am a woman" ---> "ja jestem kobietą" or "jestem kobietą" (in Polish you can omit "ja" unless you REALLY want to put emphasis on you being a woman, like "I am a woman (and the others are just girls)"
"this is a woman" ---> "to jest kobieta" (there is no "ą" at the end)
I'd advise you to look up online all the cases of Polish nouns and how to use them. Spend a day or two studying them hard and this will be a HUGE help for you going forward.
I keep putting the correct answer here but keep losing a heart and its preventing me moving forward
Please provide a screenshot, we cannot really do anything if we don't have any proof.
The she is a women part of this doesnt work i put the right answer in but it's not counting
Next time COPY/PASTE your sentence.
Maybe you made some typo?
Your sentence is correct
and even more, this the only correct translation of this sentence.