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- Topic: Polish >
- "I have water."
"I have water."
Translation:Mam wodę.
16 Comments
This is Accusative, as needed by 'mieć'. Probably the most widely used case.
Ja mam = I have
in Polish we ussually skip pronouns when they are not needed - so we skip I you (sing) we, you(pl) as subjects of sentence and also he/she/it/they if context is clear or in past tense. If you not skip those pronouns you add extra significance to the fact that it is you who has water.
As others who have studied Romance languages may recognise, Spanish follows a very similar pattern, as, I believe, does Italian.
Would "Mam wodę" be used informally and "Ja mam wodę" when speaking formally?
That's not formal/informal. Using pronouns is just redundant, so if you use it, you put an emphasis on it.
Well, 3rd person pronouns aren't that redundant, but they are not 'needed' as well. They are just very useful to make sure we know who is the subject.
So would it be a good idea just to miss out all articles? Even when speaking formally, until the point when I am able to speak Polish naturally and can figure out when to use pronouns and when not to?
If you are going from English to Polish, you can generally drop definite and indefinite articles (again, this isn't a formal/informal thing; some languages just don't use them the way English does--whereas some, like French, use them much more often...).
However, in Polish-> English exercises, Duo still requires them when necessary to a grammatical English result, so you can't just not think about them at all...
I get what you mean bud, but Jellei has mentioned using certain articles in formal speech now and again. As a total noob to this language (although not to French - RIP), I want to make sure I get the main principles engrained in my head so that I have the knowledge available when needed, instead of learning it when I need it, you see? Cheers for the quick reply
Wait... aren't you mixing "articles" and "pronouns"? There are no articles (equivalents to "a/an/the") in Polish.
Pronouns (I, you, he, they etc.) can definitely be omitted every time for 1st and 2nd person, unless you want to emphasize "It was YOU who did it! (and not me)", and 3rd person can be omitted when you think the context makes it clear enough who the subject is. If you start telling a story about Mary, you won't suddenly start the 3rd sentence of your story with "Ona", we already know that Mary's the subject. And frankly, in real speech usually either the context will make it obvious, or you will use some other, more speficic phrase ("the doctors", "Frank", or "Ms. Smith") to refer to the subject.
Ahhh, I may be getting mixed up between articles and pronouns. I'm honestly not sure XD I will brush up on my English basics this afternoon, it's been that long lol.
It appeared for me "posiadam", mam i understand but i don't know at all what is posiadam
It's more like "I own", "I possess". I would remove it, but this is a shared sentence with the "English for Polish speakers" course, so it would affect them as well... Let's just say that this is an unusual word for this sentence.
