"To zwierzę jest tygrysem."

Translation: This animal is a tiger.

[JoelWiener]

I think I understand. So is "to zwierzę to tygrys" also correct?

[tadjanow]

Yes, absolutely

[JaiRezzoug]

Dziękuję

[Cosmopoiesis]

So, by the same logic "To tygrys jest zwiezejiem” would bit be correct"? Still trying to understand the instrumental. (also i don't use a Polish keyboard so please excuse some of the letters)

[mihxal]

It should be "Ten tygrys jest zwierzęciem".

[KristineKruszer]

Why Ten as oppose to To? Just when I'm starting to understand Polish grammar i get lost again. :P

[Jellei]

"ten" is for masculine nouns, "to" for neuter nouns.

[0_Gaurav]

What do we use for female nouns?

[Jellei]

"ta".

Note that all of this refers to Nominative, the basic case. Other forms will be used for other grammatical cases.

[marcinmirski]

Tygrys is a masculine noun, while zwierzę is neuter :-)

[SinaSabet28]

Is "To" like "Это" in Russian?

[alik1989]

Not always. Here's it's not. It's a demonstrative pronoun (Russian: Этот/тот).

Here's all the info you'll need.

[Jellei]

Well, here it actually works, "Это животное - тигр") But yeah, of course this "Это" is a form of "Этот".

[alik1989]

Oh, of course. I was thinking of зверь.

[isaacishumble]

I put this tiger is an animal. Why is that wrong?

[tadjanow]

The meaning is different.

'This animal is a tiger' says that one specific animal is a tiger.

'Tiger is an animal' is a generic statement about tigers.

[WonderfulWalrus]

I think the question is more about what grammatical use 'to' has here, which i am also confused about. How is this different from just saying "pająk jest tygrysem" ?

[tadjanow]

'To' in this sentence translates as 'this'. You need to use an appropriate word to match the gender of the noun, e.g.

masculine: 'ten mężczyzna' - this man, 'ten pająk' - this spider

feminine: 'ta kobieta' - this woman, 'ta książka' - this book

neutral: 'to dziecko' - this child, 'to zwierzę' - this animal

So in your example: 'Pająk jest tygrysem' would mean 'A spider is a tiger', 'Ten pająk jest tygrysem' would mean 'This spider is a tiger' and 'Pająk jest tym tygrysem' would mean 'A spider is this tiger' ('tym' is an instrumental case form of 'ten').

[CaioManzan1]

Thanks =)

[joseramon178168]

what is to exactly

[Jellei]

See https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26090996

In "To zwierzę jest tygrysem" it's number 1, in "To zwierzę to tygrys" it's both 1 and 2.

[YoMTXU]

Why is it to zwierzę and not ten zwierzę?

[swimmermaniac]

To is that and this

[Jellei]

Yes, we accept "that animal".

[George215793]

Would this be correct; "To zwierzę CZY tygrys"?

[alik1989]

With a question mark at the end it would mean "Is this an animal or a tiger?"

[critto2]

im believing more and more that jest is literally useless

[Jellei]

The verb meaning "is" is literally useless? A very interesting theory.