"Ona stoi przed lustrem."

Translation: She is standing in front of the mirror.

[LearninLis]

are all nouns following przed in instrumentive?

[tadjanow]

depending on the meaning, 'przed' can be followed by instrumental case if it refers to a location of an object in front of another object or an event happening before some other event.

If 'przed' is used to describe a motion towards a front of some place, then you use accusative, e.g. 'samochód podjechał przed ratusz' - 'a car arrived in front of the city hall'.

C.f. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/przed

[bluthbanana87]

Would you ever use the locative case with 'przed'? I thought it'd be 'lustrze' here because that's locative, but apoarently not.

[Matteo904260]

No, according to "logic" should be used locative, at least for the logic of european languages, but no, u gotta use instrumental in this case

[va-diim]

Very interesting. In Russian,

Ona stoit pieried liustroj,

means "She is standing in front of the chandelier."

[Shtef11]

Similar in Croatian (in a common dialect):
Ona stoji pred lusterom.

[GeorgeONeil]

Why not 'she is stood in front of the mirror'?

[va-diim]

"is stood" and "is sat" are British colloquialisms

[GeorgeONeil]

Interesting. Looking up on OED it seems it was standard in the 19th century but has progressed to now being dialetical.

Should it be considered wrong however if a large number of english speakers have correctly interpreted the text, particularly given it occurs before any discussion of past tenses?

[va-diim]

That's for Duolingo to decide I guess. But the Polish verb is active. She stands/is standing. "Is stood" sounds passive like someone put her there.