"Ten chłopiec lubi mleko."
Translation:This boy likes milk.
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What is the difference between "to" and "ten"? I am starting to understand the really basic logic in Polish grammar but I can't see the difference between those
I think "to" is the form if the noun is neuter, whereas "ten" is the form if the noun is masculine
It's something like English "it"? But Polish language has less neuter nouns than English.
The obvious words for rodzaj (gramatical gender) and how it connects with płeć (sex) are:
kobieta-woman - feminine-rodzaj żeński
chłopiec-boy- masculine- rodzaj męski
dziecko- child- neuter-rodzaj nijaki
Neuter, masculine, feminine, animate, inanimate, common, ... are all grammatical genders
To is neutral and ten is masculine For example: To dziecko (that child) Ten stół (that table)
Ye ur right but i think neutral kinda means the same. As in neuter is the neutral gender if u think about it
I don't know, to me "neutral" sounds like something that you could use for any gender, but it's not like you can say "to kobieta" or "to mężczyzna" for "this woman/this man".
Oh no lol i know it's "ta kobieta" and " ten mężczyzna " (I'm a native polish person btw). All i meant was that the neuter gender of nouns is basically the neutral gender out of the 3 genders of words (masc,fem,neuter)
But that's not the term which is in use. Similarly, you probably wouldn't argue in favour of 'neutralny' instead of 'nijaki'.
Is there a way to say 'That boy likes milk.' ? Same for 'ta dziewczynka'; both times I wrote 'that' instead of 'this'. Is this incorrect?
Thank you, I immediately realized / remembered when I started the next lesson. Doh!
The complete set is: ten mężczyzna (this man), ta kobieta (this woman), to dziecko (this child), ci mężczyźni (these men), te kobiety (these women).
The difference lay in grammatical genre.
So, ten is for any masculine words bothanimate and inanimate, that's right?
Yes, but only in the nominative case. In accusative, ten stays ten for masculine inanimate nouns, but becomes tego for masculine animate nouns.