- Forum >
- Topic: Polish >
- "Mamy ją."
28 Comments
Polish objects have genders, too, so it could mean "We have the ball. We have it." "Mamy piłkę. Mamy ją." as piłka - ball is feminine.
I think it's because ją makes reference to a feminine object whereas "it" is neutral. If the sentence had been 'Mamy to' your translation would have been accepted.
But since ją can refer to a thing, and things are referred to using "it" in English, it should still be accepted
Oh, I can see your point now. I speak spanish, so I have the gender thing very well incorporated in my brain. Sorry about that. Probably they aren't accepting 'it' as a valid answer because they want us to learn how pronouns are inflected according to gender.
ingrained* in my brain :) (or... cemented in my brain)
incorporated means more like... added/brought in and now is involved with the object/concept. You can incorporate new techniques into a classroom setting.
If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills...
136
Because JEJ is genitive and dative while JĄ is accusative. Every verb or even context requires a specific grammatical case in Polish. For example the verb "dawać" (to give) can take both accusative (the object that is being given) and dative (the receiver). If you want to say "I give it to her" where "it" is a feminine noun, you'll say "Daję ją jej". Thanks to the cases we can get along without articles and with less prepositions.
ok this is confusing me. someone else said that "ją" was for negative sentences.. but I guess that wasn't true? Or is this negative because of subject matter? (not srs)
anyone mind explaining "jej' vs "ją" to me?
It's the other way around. 'Ją' is used in affirmative sentences and 'Jej' is used in negative sentences and also to indicate possession ('Jej' = her, poss. pronoun). You have to be a bit careful though, because 'jej' (as I understand it) is only used in a negative sentence whose affirmative version uses 'ją' in the accusative case. For example: 'Kocham ją' (I love her, Accusative) -> 'Nie kocham jej' (I don't love her, Genitive). I hope this helps! Good luck!
So is Genitive and not Accusative used when expressing negation in Polish? Does it apply everywhere?
Yes, but as I said, the genitive case applies only to negative sentences whose affirmative counterpart uses the accusative case. If for instance you had an affirmative sentence in the dative case, it would stay in the dative case in the negative sentence. You can check this page for examples: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases#Genitive
I hope you find this useful!
So if I understand well, ''ją'' is equivalent to the French ''la/l' '' you put before a verb and ''jej'' is like the French ''son/sa'' article?
''Mamy ją'' = ''On l'a / Nous l'avons'' ''Znam ją'' = ''Je la connais''
''Mam jej psa'' = ''J'ai son chien'' ''Jej wino jest dobre'' = ''Son vin est bon''
- 136
It's unfortunately not as straightforward but in most cases "ją" will indeed match the French "la/l'/le" for the feminine nouns, except for the negative sentences. "Jej" on the other hand always means "son/sa" but also "lui" (when it's in the COI function for the feminine nouns) and sometimes even "la/l'/le" if the verb doesn't take the Accusative case. Examples:
"Widzę JĄ tutaj." = "Je la vois ici."
"Nie widzę JEJ." = "Je ne la vois pas."
"Lubię JEJ psa." = "J'aime bien son chien."
"Daję JEJ prezent." = "Je lui donne un cadeau."
"Szukam JEJ wszędzie." = "Je la cherche partout."
So if you wanted to say "je lui donne son cadeau" it would be "daję jej jej prezent"? (come to think of it, same thing in English - I am giving her her present).
- 136
Exactly! It's grammatically correct but due to repetition of "jej", we would probably try to avoid this sentence structure in official or formal language.
Merci infiniment :). I just learned that COI means "complément d'objet indirect". I was really confused at first because I always called it the CI (complément indirect)
- 136
Oops, I'm sorry to have confused you! Anyway, in case you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask, I'll try my best to explain. I love grammar and French language. Polish is my native language.
- 90
I think that I understand that the pronoun ja in this sentence is the direct object and therefore in the accusative case. However, mamy, "we have" I assume is possessive. Therefore I thought that the pronoun following the possessive verb is suppose to change to the genitive case, in this instance jej. Where am I getting confused. Thanks!
When we think of 'possession means Genitive', that's about phrases like "Adam's watch", "my brother's girlfriend", "Anna's car" and so on - phrases which in English use Saxon Genitive. In those phrases ("zegarek Adama", "dziewczyna mojego brata", "samochód Anny" the 'owner' takes Genitive.
But it doesn't mean that everything that's connected to possession takes it. Here we just have the verb "to have", and it takes a direct object in Accusative. Moreover, if we are talking about "my car" or "your computer", that simply takes a possessive pronoun (mój samochód, twój komputer) and no Genitive is involved.
