"Lew nie jest tygrysem."
Translation:A lion is not a tiger.
26 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
What was your answer? Nobody can help you without knowing what your answer was and what type of exercise it was.
Can someone link me a useful website that shows how to conjugate nouns like this? I don't know whether to use Tygrys, Tygrysem, etc. I'm not used to a language where verbs change so I need to learn these.
Have a look here, mostly at the part about cases of course.
This website is quite good for learning grammar.
Why don't I use genitive case for negation "Lew nie jest tygrysa"? Why is it still instrumental case?
The genitive for negation works only with accusative, and not after prepositions.
I am not Polish, but it appears that the instrumental takes precedence over the genitive.
Why does 'nie' come before 'jest' here, but in another example, it came after?
You need to point that example, because in Polish nie is most often before verb. Only if you clearly want to negate other word. (Jesteś nie chłopcem , lecz mężczyzną- You are not a boy, but a man)
But I think you may think about sentence like
Lew to nie (jest) tygrys.
There is no verb here. (if jest is ommitted), and you put "nie" after to.
227
The example is "Kawa to nie śniadanie". I just got it and copy pasted it. To me this word order sound more natural but I've only been learning Polish for a day :P
To say "You are a lion, not a tiger", would "Jesteś lewsem, nie tygrysem" be correct? Dziękuję
Hahaha well I'm afraid that 'lewsem' is so far from the correct word that quite possibly people wouldn't even understand. I like the word, though :D
The Instrumental of "lew" is "lwem". Yeah, I guess it's less regular than usual.
It can be either "Lew to nie (jest) tygrys" ('to' + Nominative) or "Lew nie jest tygrysem" ('jest' + Instrumental).
More info here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16373167
Why is this "tygrysem" and not simply "tygrys"? Is not "a tiger" simply "a tiger"?
The form (case) of the noun depends on its function in the sentence. "tygrys" is the basic form (Nominative), and such a sentence can either be translated using "to" + Nominative ("Lew to nie tygrys") or "jest" + Instrumental ("Lew nie jest tygrysem").
In Polish we negate the verb and rarely other parts of speech. "Lew jest nie tygrysem." sounds to me like "nietygrysem" - a non-tiger.
However, I can imagine such a word order in contrastive sentences like "A lion is not an X, but a Y".
Even as English is concerned, "is not" is a rare type of negation, because usually you have "does not swim/read/write/eat/drink/etc.", "not" is before the verb.
A lion is not a dog.= lew To nie pies A lion is not a tiger. = lew Nie Jest Tygrysem. Confusing
There are two constructions that are equivalent.
"A lion is not a dog" is either "Lew to nie pies" or "Lew nie jest psem".
"A lion is not a tiger" is either "Lew to nie tygrys" or "Lew nie jest tygrysem".
You may read more about it here: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/16373167