15 Comments
When I say odwiedzam siostrę it is clear that I am talking about somebody's sister, usually my sister, not just a sister.That sounds really weird !
True. I changed it to my sister. We still have some similar sentences that need to be fixed, though.
So, does saying it without a pronoun like "our" or "my" in this context happen often in Polish?
Isn't it a pretty inaccurate translation in that case? Wouldn't you need "nasze siostrę"?
In Polish we often leave "naszą" out. It is implied. also it would be "naszą siostrę" = our sister or "nasze siostry" our sisters.
I learned elsewhere that after w follows accusative. Why then is it genetive here?
Actually mostly it's Locative and it is Locative here. But it does depend on the function of 'w'. English wiktionary states three most important meanings:
- (+ locative) in
- (+ accusative) into, in
- (+ accusative) on (time/date)
For example, to differentiate between two first ones: if something is literally inside the wall, it's "w ścianie". If you hit the wall, that's "w ścianę". Your brain is in(side) your head, that is "w głowie". If you hit yourself on the head, that's "w głowę".
Ok regarding 'our' being implicity in the context, but I would still recommend against omitting 'naszą' here, since we only have a sentence in Duolingo, therefore there is no context.
Lack of context is a context by itself in such a sentence: if there isn't anything that shows that this is 'someone else's sister', then it means that this is the subject of the sentence's sister.
when is the 'e' dropped from 'we' and when is it necessary?- I don't think I have had any information about that.
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w only becomes we when the next word starts with a combination of consonants that would make adding w awkward. Wiktionary gives two examples: words starting with wl and wr.
