"Kobieta mówi po polsku."
Translation:The woman speaks Polish.
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I am Slovak (south neighbor of Poles with same language roots) and for me it is absolutely unnatural to put there an indefinite article. We don't have anything like that. The only similar situation is "some woman", but no "a woman". In other languages I don't have so big problem with this, but here... Even for the fifth try, i have wrote "woman speaks polish". I am damned.
I'm English and learning to get used to not using them. It's quite hard when you're used to them. 'Woman speaks Polish,' really doesn't work in English unfortunately - unless it's a news headline. At least you're not learning via French - they love all kinds of articles, everywhere. :-
Funny thing, that im Hungarian, so we use articles, a lot. But when I learn Slavic languages, I hate and forget to use these articles in the translations, so I struggle, with the same problem as you :D
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Yeah, Duolingo really forces you to learn English grammar and spelling. This is more of a translation site than a speaking site. You don't really learn to speak languages, you learn to translate sentences correctly between languages. (Which of course helps on learning to speak the language too)
You can see some grammatical information at each lesson(doesn't connected with the context of lesson) which is fine. I wish there were also(on phones).
I take it "po" is required when mentioning a language? I recall something similar in Russian.
Po is like English -ly. For example happiLY or suddenLY. So in English Kobieta mówi po Polsku would sound somehow like The/A woman speaks Polishly. It sounds a little bit sily, but thats how this language works haha.
yes, it would be "po-polski/по-польски" in Russian, but "pols'koyu/польською" in Ukrainian, for example.
Words change endings for different cases. Click on the Polish declension of polski: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polski#Polish
"po polsku" = "in Polish" or "in the Polish language" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/po_polsku
It's in the accusative case right? Because she speak "Polish" "Polish" is the noun that the verb being done to, so it changed for the accusative case right? I'm just trying to get a grasp on cases and it's confusing me.
Actually when thinking about cases, you can disregard "po polsku". "polsku" is an old Dative form, which is nowadays only used in this construction. So you can just treat "po polsku" as a whole, an unusual adverb, in a way. I think technically it's an 'adverbial phrase'.
Why it can't be translated to "She speaks Polish"? I'm Brazillian and we don't use articles + substantives where you can just use a pronoun....
(Kidding.... I know Ona is the word for She... but I still hate the fact my brain is programmed to always use pronouns anywhere it can be used. ;--;)
Anywayz... what the hell is "Po"?
Word po means literally "after" but has also lots of other meanings like english "on" or "for"
"mówi" = "speaks". "po" is a part of the "po polsku" phrase which means "in Polish".
"kobieta" is the basic, Nominative form, used mostly for the subject of the sentence, like here.
"kobietą" is the Instrumental form, used mostly after the preposition "z" = "with" and in sentences like "Ona jest kobietą" (She is a woman).
Well, as "The woman..." is the main English translation, "the" really must have been there, otherwise it would be a huge, so far unknown bug.
"po" is a preposition used in constructions for 'speaking/writing/reading in a given language'. You use 'po' and a form ending in -u (usually -sku), which actually isn't used anywhere else. It kinda means "Polish-style", "the Polish way", or similar.