"Oni znają tego kota."

Translation: They know this cat.

[PuertoRico_7213]

Wow slowly i'm starting to understand the polish languge. :)

[BaciLacsi]

Lucky you... I am struggling with grammar like T-Rex with the bathroom tissue.. (o:

[Euhan1]

Kudos!

[sallyfairman]

I love the practice with the verb forms and can see how this can be applied to future ideas, such as saying, "Yes, I know that guy." However, and I could be wrong, but I don't think we generally talk about knowing animals in English. It could be helpful to understand in what context one would say "I know this cat," in Polish. Thanks. Overall, I really love the program!

[luless]

You are in a park. You see a familiar cat and you say: Znam tego kota. To kot moich sąsiadów. Co on tu robi? (I know this cat. It is my neighbours' cat. What is he doing here?).

Znać means to have information about someone/something, to be introduced to someone in the past. In that context you can say that you know this cat, because you have information about it (it's owners).

[sallyfairman]

Thank you! That is very helpful.

[achipa19]

Konkretnie zgadzam się z państwem. Ale zabawna jest ta zdania...

[rockyderaze]

When do we use tego against ten? And tamtego against tamten?

[Jellei]

I don't know how many cases you know at this level, but for masculine gender:

"ten/tamten" are basic Nominative forms/

"tego/tamtego" are Genitive. And Accusative.

In Accusative, which is what we have here, some nouns take (tam)ten, and some take (tam)tego. The first one is used for inanimate nouns, the other for animate ones.

Foods and beverages are often considered grammatically 'animate' for no reason at all, so that's a confusion.

[Alice251287]

Thank you so much, I was very confused. I wish the sentence you wrote above, "In Accusative, which is what we have here, some nouns take (tam)ten, and some take (tam)tego. The first one is used for inanimate nouns, the other for animate ones," was in the tree! I started coming across "tego" and did not know what was going on. :) Thank you.

[Jellei]

You're welcome :) Please just pay attention to the fact that what I discussed above was only about masculine gender. There are more forms, for other genders.

[trouvere.oublie]

"Tego" means "that" or "this"? I wrote "that", Duo accepted it and added that "this" is another variant. Is it right?

[Jellei]

Basically, "this" = "ten" (and its forms), "that" = "tamten" (and its forms).

But as in Polish we don't really use "tamten" too often unless we really want to contrast "this" and "that", we decided at some point to accept both "this" and "that" for "ten". Although that's not implemented in all sentences yet.

Anyway, I'd encourage sticking with just using them as I wrote in the first sentence, that's the most correct option :)