"They do not help their colleagues."

Translation: One nie pomagają swoim kolegom.

[Ashibaal]

"Nie pomagają swoim kolegom" is not accepted! Reported. Favouring the use of personal pronouns is not very clever.

[Gabriel_Barahona]

Not a native, but shouldn't it be "nie pomagają swoich kolegom" because "kolegom" is masculine-personal plural? I might be wrong though

[JanNoww]

No, there should be used dative (celownik), in dative it's swoim

[MarjanvanK]

what is the difference in this case between < ich > and< swoim > ?

[Jellei]

"ich": They (Susan and Bart) do not help their (Martha and Steve's) colleagues.

"swoim": They (Susan and Bart) do not help their (own) colleagues.

Any form of "swój" always refers back to the subject of the sentence.

[MarjanvanK]

thanks ! I suspected something like that, but I was not sure. Now I am

[AlisonSinc]

But isn't this more likely to be the second case here, ie a comment on how S and B don't help their (own) colleagues. We don't know anything about those of Martha and Steve....

[Jellei]

"swoim" does sound a lot more probable. I guess there's no point in keeping "ich" as one of the starred answers.

[immerweiter]

why is this not correct? Oni nie pomagają swojemu kolegom.

[Jellei]

"swojemu" is for masculine singular. For plural (luckily here, both plurals) you need "swoim".

[immerweiter]

thank you

[AdamMlodoz]

Why is this dative case?

[JudithStanley]

You help (give help) to a person, so it's the indirect object. It's the same in German.

[BrianH71]

So here, the verb's demand for the dative overrules the "nie"s demand for the genitive? Is that the case for all verbs that demand a certain case (e.g. być)?

[immery]

nie's demand for genitive works only for accusative. All other cases stay the same.

Also it does not change a case after preposition.

[JanuszWoro3]

Does "swoim współpracownikom" work here?

[Jellei]

Yes, it does.

[Bro208233]

Koleżankom when clicked is silent

[Jellei]

I changed something, next time the system should offer "kolegom", which has audio.

Just in case: "koleżankom" (from "koleżanka") are female friends, and "kolegom" (from "kolega") are male (or a mixed group).

[Darth_Elven]

Dalczego "kolegom", a nie "kolegam"?

[Tim5602]

1. • dlaczego
2. 'Kolegam' nie istnieje

[Hot-Doggy]

Can the Polish noun "kolega" also mean "mate" or "buddy"? If so, "mates" and "buddies" should be included as correct answers.

[Jellei]

"buddies" worked already, added "mates".

[Mr.Aliyev]

Swoich vs Swoim. Hello, but shouldn't it be "nie pomagają swoich kolegom" because "kolegom" is masculine personal plural? This question drives me to the wall. Can you please give me a short explanation

[Jellei]

The words "swoich kolegom" do not match each other grammatically.

OK, "koledzy" is a masculine personal plural noun, true. Now, let's look at the verb: "pomagać" (to help) takes an indirect object (the 'receiver' of the action of helping) in Dative case.

Now, you either recognize the patterns well enough already or you can check on Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kolega#Polish), that the Dative plural form of "koledzy" is indeed "kolegom".

Now, let's see the same for "swój", remembering that it refers to a 'macsuline personal plural' noun. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sw%C3%B3j#Declension_2 shows that the Dative form for both plurals is "swoim".

"swoich" is just the wrong case here, being either Genitive or Accusative.