"The new boys have new shoes."
Translation:Nowi chłopcy mają nowe buty.
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Why is it "nowi" for chłopcy and "nowe" for buty? A bit confused as theyre both masculine nouns. Something about being animate?
Exaclty, animate masculine plural = e.g. nowi, starzy Any other plural (neuter, feminine, inanimate masculine) = e.g. nowe, stare
Could someone please explain to me why 'chłopcy' takes the adjective 'nowi' and not 'nowy'?
2793
'Nowi' is for plural, while 'nowy' is singular (both forms masculine-personal).
Unfortunately the endings don't match with the noun, and i think that is what mislead you.
- 1048
Nominative masculine personal plural adjectives have a consonant shift (in this case, w to w(i)).
I wrote a bit about consonant shifts, including in adjectives, here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12262354
Nowy is singular, nowe is plural.
"the" doesn't really have a translation in Polish, although we can interpret "the new boys" as "these new boys".
And now there is a bit of a problem. The word "boys" can translate either to "chłopcy" (younger boys) or "chłopaki" (older boys). "chłopcy" is a virile ('masculine personal plural') noun, as it is a plural for a group of people 'including at least one man'. So the right form of "these" is "ci": "ci nowi chłopcy".
"chłopaki", on the other hand, is some illogical exception. Despite its meaning, somehow it is grammatically non-virile ('not masculine personal' plural), behaving identically to nouns like "kobiety" (women). So the right form for some reason is "te". But it's "te nowe chłopaki".
"te nowi" are forms for different plurals, they will never match each other grammatically.
Yes, but see what I wrote above:
"chłopaki", on the other hand, is some illogical exception. Despite its meaning, somehow it is grammatically non-virile ('not masculine personal' plural), behaving identically to nouns like "kobiety" (women). So the right form for some reason is "te". But it's "te nowe chłopaki".