"Ona zna tego psa."
Translation:She knows this dog.
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Which case should I use after a determined verb? Is there a website, book or something? Many thanks.
It would be very helpful, I wonder about that too! I would appreciate a lot if someone provided a website which contains such information.
dictionaries should have this information, but only one I found is this wsjp.pl
It needs a knowledge of case questions in Polish - kogo/co is an accusative question,
So you think that knowing the questions for each case, we should be able to understand which case to choose?
I also found a list of verbs with genitive and tried translating it https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12882227$from_email=commentcomment_id=13263702
and someone else made even better one here https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12459057
no. I mean dictionaries created for Polish people like the one I linked often demonstrate cases not with their names, but questions or something/someone. To use them you need that knowledge.
but I cannot link to the "składnia" part , you need to click the number, and then "składnia" to get to
Rzosobowy + znać + KOGO/CO
Rzosobowy + znać + ZDANIE PYTAJNOZALEŻNE
Thank you very much! I didn't want to throw myself completely into the Polish grammar yet, I'm going slowly, but I also found a great PDF available online... It is called *Polish in a Nutshell,
http://www.skwierzyna.net/polishgrammar.pdf
They explain the cases and most common situations in which each is used.
Are "this" and "that" totally interchangeable all the time? "Tego" has both on the drop down options for translating it. Thanks.
Hmm. I don't think it should be suggested, it should be accepted. Deleted from the hints.
Well, the thing is, that English and Polish perceive these pronouns differently. Basically, a translation of "this" is "ten" and its forms, while a translation of "that" is "tamten" and its forms. And I think it's good to stick to this literal translation.
But the fact is, that Polish has three levels of closeness as "ten/ten/tamten", while English has "this/that/that". So they overlap. When Polish uses "tamten", it really is "that one over there". So it's not used that often as in English.
Kinda unrelated, but I was wondering about female/male nouns. In spanish, there are "male" nouns, but can be made feminine if you know the gender. Like "perro"=dog. But if it is a female dog, you would say "perra", marking its gender/sex. Would this also apply in Polish? Do y'all change the ending if you know the gender of the noun in question? Or once a masculine/feminine noun always a masculine/feminine noun? Thanks in advance, and sorry for the recent bombardment of questions lol
Never apologize for asking questions ;) Yes, generally it applies in Polish, but it may not always be that easy as to just change the ending.
"pies" is either a masculine dog or just "dog" when its sex doesn't matter. But if you want to say that it's a female dog, the word is "suka". Which is just as bad as its English equivalent "bitch".
"suczka" (the diminutive form) is probably more common, but it may also be considered offensive.
Oh ok. Thanks, so it's not just as simple as adding an "a" at the end to make it feminine. Yea, perra is also like "bitch", but not always, as long as there's a female dog in the room, we know we're referring to a dog and not a human.
I have a ton of questions, I'm just finally getting the courage to ask them, and I've been more into my Polish learning.
Dziękuję :)
Could someone explain the difference between "znać" and "wiedzieć"? Other vocab programs I use only teach wiedzieć.
If you have a direct object in your sentence, then you can't use wiedzieć, only znać. There are very few exceptions (wiem to / wiem wszystko / nic nie wiem).
If the verb introduces a clause or uses the preposition 'about', then you can only use 'wiedzieć'.
- Znam tego psa. = I know this dog.
- Wiem coś o tym psie. = I know something about this dog.
- Wiem, że to twój pies. = I know that this is your dog.
Confused about "tego" is it a conjugation of "to" or not? When do you know when do use each one?
"tego" may be a form of "to" (neuter 'this'), but here it's a form of "ten" (masculine 'this').
"znać" takes Accusative, so as you can see here, it can only be masculine (masculine animate). If the sentence was in Genitive, then it could be both masculine and neuter.
If the determiner starts with "tam-", it translates to "that". If it doesn't, it translates to "this" ;)
That's as far as the 'direct translations' are concerned. In fact, those words work differently between Polish and English. Basically, [this/that/that] = [tego/tego/tamtego] (and forms). So the middle forms overlap. "tamtego" is more like "that one over there", and it will be used a lot less often than English "that".
More info here: https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/polish-demonstrative-pronouns/
I was wondering, English "know" has kind of like, two meanings - to be familiar in a relationship sort of sense, or more like, head knowledge or information. Does Polish use znac interchangeably for these concepts too, or would there be a different word for head knowledge vs personal familiarity?
I don't remember any other user noticing two meanings of the English verbs, usually it's a very problematic thing for people who don't know a language which has two separate verbs for those :D So... good job!
"znać" is "to be familiar with". Usually we just say that "znać" takes a direct object (to know XYZ).
"wiedzieć" is, if I understood you correctly, "head knowledge", so "to have some knowledge". Usually we just say that it does not take a direct object, so it's rather "I know that you're a lawyer" or "I know everything about you two!".