29 Comments
1458
Having studied Czech many years ago, this always looks like the tiger is eating the poor cat to me. Of course, it is better than "she is eating a lawyer."
To me as a Croatian,it looks like a robot tiger failing at grammar announcing he will eat the cat.That's one of the few things that i'll confuse when i go fast,otherwise going through the lessons is quite fast and doesn't take much effort :) -Tiger eat cat,rawr
So is it an alternative to: "Lew to kot'"? Can I say as well: "Tygrys to kot" and vice versa?
I'm wondering the same thing. What is the difference in meaning between "Lew to kot." and "Lew jest kotem."?
I think in second case we mean, that tiger belong to "class" of cats, and in first case tiger and cat sounds like separate kinds of animals, so it sounds a little bit strange, like you don't see the difference between them.
It is the same word, but used in different sentence.
Kot - is nominative- it is used when cat is a subject-Cat eats-=Kot je, and in sentences with to
Kotem is instrumental- it is used after certain prepositions, when indicating what tool is used, and after certain verbs. At the beginning you mostly use it after być=to be (jestem/jesteś/jest ...)
@Marek: Many thanks for pointing out http://mowicpopolsku.com/ for explanation of Polish grammar. The explanation is extensive with many good examples!
The website is great, but as it must have been made by a very proficient learner and not a native, it's not totally free from mistakes. For example, I know that Genitive neuter is almost totally wrong.
How can this be tigers are cats and a tiger is a cat? Does it not need plural or singular or some distinction? I realise it cAN mean the same but also not
Well, in defining, one could defend a statement that "A tiger is a cat" and "Tigers are cats" mean completely the same... Although you could also say "Tygrysy są kotami". We do accept "Tigers are cats" because some people argued about it and we decided to agree, but it's probably better to keep to the closer "A tiger is a cat" ;)
Thanks, didn't mean to be picky about it, was just in a quizzical mood. and thanks for being so fast on this and another query I made about czy. Polish is fascinating and I am still at the very beginning, just beginning to get the sounds as spoken and syllables written so that it no longer looks totally alien to me. So different to the western European languages. I am on my own with this here so I appreciate all the work you are doing there
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What you might think of as the object of the verb "to be" must be in the instrumental case in Polish, so the ending of masculine nouns will generally be -em and the ending of feminine nouns often -ą,
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16373167 for the 'when to use which construction' in an X is Y sentence
http://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/instrumental/ for knowledge about Instrumental and its endings
"kot" is the basic, Nominative form. It's mostly used for the subject of the sentence.
"kotem" is Instrumental. It's used for Y in sentences like "X is Y".
The difference is when you are talking in general or more specific.
In general, we all know "A lion is a cat" (Lew to kot). But more specifically, I can say "This lion is a kat" (Ten lew jest kotem)
As in the other sentence, you make a mistake with not translating "this". "This lion is a cat" is "Ten lew jest kotem".
"Lew to kot" and "Lew jest kotem" both translate to "A lion is a cat".
Can soneone tell me in what scenario would you favour "tygrys jest kotem" over "tygrys to kot"?
Personally I think that the 'jest' construction is more elegant and the 'to' construction is a bit like saying "A tiger = a cat".
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The "jest" sounds more Western to me, more Czech or Slovak, while the "to" sounds like Ukrainian or Russian. That may be saying much the same thing, though.
