"I am eating a tasty tomato."
Translation:Jem smacznego pomidora.
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I would say that this IS the accusative (because of poles view of tomatoes as being "animated"). I would very much like someone who knows Polish better than I do clearly confirm this conjecture.
accordinng to http://sjp.pwn.pl/slowniki/pomidora.html "pomidor" can have both pomidor and pomidora as Accusative (so it may be animated or not) but pomidora is more colloquial.
So "jem smaczny pomidor" should be accepted as it is a more "correct" but both are commonly used by native speakers
Why are we discussing the possible genetive forms? Isn't pomidora in this sentence accusative?
This is very confusative...
When I first wrote the comment I mixed up English names of cases. I was talking about Accusative of course.
In either case, I am still confused about why we're using genitive to begin with.
Isn't jeść a transitive verb normally taking the accusative? When we're declining the adjective, are we declining smacznego to be accusative (i.e. for people/animals) or we're declining it in the genitive, and neither case makes sense to me as a language learner who thinks that pomidor is a tomato (and not a person/animal) and jeść is a verb that takes the accusative.
I get as a language learner that some stuff is just weird, but there's got to be a rule here, or at least some record of what the exceptions are, right?
pomidor, and many more food related words are exceptions. They are treated as grammatically "animated".
m1 - masculine personal m2 - masculine animate m3 - masculine non-animate
Masculine animate [m2] = animals, plants, some food: fruits, vegetables, countable dish; names of sport games.
e.g. kot a cat, pies a dog, storczyk a orchid, ananas a pineapple, orzech a nut, kotlet a cutlet, naleśnik a pancake, tenis a tennis
Sports: It works like that: Gram w +D. (ending: -a (m2)) but “Uprawiam +D. (without ending (m3)) Gram w hokeja - I play hockey; Gram w golfa - I play golf, but Uprawiam (zawodowo) hokej - I play (professionally) hockey; Uprawiam sport - I play sports. Yes, there are subcases – they differ depending on the preposition with which the verb connects. So when you learn a new verb – look what combinations this verb makes (with/without preposition) with masculine impersonal nouns. Learn sentences not just words. I think that not alive things that we mostly throw in this category are things that we can easly (and often) carry. They are ‘born’ when we say – Podaj mi jednego ‘give me one’:
Mam smartfona (m2) – I have a smartphone, but Mam telefon (m3) – I have a phone (besause first phones were stationary)
Mam laptopa (m2) – I have a laptop, but Mam computer (m3) – I have a computer (because first computers were stationary) [But: Mam tablet - I have a tablet. ]
Daj mi papierosa (m2) – Give me a cigarette, but Daj mi długopis (m3) – Give me a pen (because there is more than one cigarette in one package)
You must know that subgrammatical gender (m1, m2, m3) isn’t ‘born’ because of grammatical rules, but from our habits. Grammatical endings are not from some linguists but are prefered endings by people. If linguist or some "experts" don't aprove the ending than often are two forms. The same is with pomidor. Mostly 99% of Poles say: Mam pomidora, Mam buraka, Mam banana, Mam ziemniaka etc.
Added now.
Still, I don't know if in my whole life I've heard anyone say that, even if technically that's the correct version...
m1 - masculine personal
m2 - masculine animate
m3 - masculine non-animate
Masculine animate [m2] = animals, plants, some food: fruits, vegetables, countable dishes; names of sport games.
e.g. kot a cat, pies a dog, storczyk a orchid, ananas a pineapple, orzech a nut, kotlet a cutlet, naleśnik a pancake, tenis a tennis
Sports: It works like that: Gram w +A. (ending: -a (m2)) but “Uprawiam +A. (without ending (m3)) Gram w hokeja - I play hockey; Gram w golfa - I play golf, but Uprawiam (zawodowo) hokej - I play (professionally) hockey; Uprawiam sport - I play sports. Yes, there are subcases – they differ depending on the preposition with which the verb connects. So when you learn a new verb – look what combinations this verb makes (with/without preposition) with masculine impersonal nouns. Learn sentences not just words.
I think that not alive things that we mostly throw in this category are things that we can easly (and often) carry. They are ‘born’ when we say – Podaj mi jednego ‘give me one’:
Mam smartfona (m2) – I have a smartphone, but Mam telefon (m3) – I have a phone (besause first phones were stationary)
Mam laptopa (m2) – I have a laptop, but Mam computer (m3) – I have a computer (because first computers were stationary) [But: Mam tablet - I have a tablet. ]
Daj mi papierosa (m2) – Give me a cigarette, but Daj mi długopis (m3) – Give me a pen (because there is more than one cigarette in one package)
You must know that subgrammatical gender (m1, m2, m3) isn’t ‘born’ because of grammatical rules, but from our habits. Grammatical endings are not from some linguists but are prefered endings by people. If linguist or some "experts" don't aprove the ending than often are two forms. The same is with pomidor. Probably 99% of Poles say: Mam pomidora, Mam buraka, Mam banana, Mam ziemniaka etc.
I don't agree with people that say that Poles use both forms - there are prefered forms: mnie = mię, but Poles don't use second, you can use dwu as dwóch, dwom or dwoma but we don't do it either.
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as far as I know the verb jesc ( to eat) requires Akkusativ. Pomidor is male and in Akkusativ the same as Nominativ = pomidor The adjective accordingly should be smaczny and not smacznego. In Genitiv your "right answer" would be correct. Right?
Right and wrong at the same time.
Yes, according to the rules of grammar, the Accusative form of "pomidor" should be "pomidor", and this sentence should be "Jem smaczny pomidor".
In Accusative of masculine nouns (and nowhere else), it is crucial whether the noun is animate or inanimate. If it's animate, its Accusative form is identical to Genitive. If it's inanimate, its Accusative form is identical to Nominative.
Now... logically a tomato is inanimate, right? But most fruits and vegetables are actually treated as grammatically animate by native speakers, despite any logic. It's not 'a common mistake' level, it's the 'I literally never heard "Jem pomidor" in my life' level. What you're saying is technically correct, but almost everyone says it differently, as we put it here.
So is tomato masculine or feminine? Or does the 'a' at the end of pomidor signify case?
Am I reading the Wiktionary page correctly that "pomidor" is masculine inanimate and if so shouldn't the correct answer be "Jem smaczny pomidora"?
The inanimate variant looks identical to Nominative: "Jem smaczny pomidor".
Sure, officially it's inanimate and it should be "Jem pomidor". But I live in the capital city and I have lived for nearly 30 years and I have never in my life heard anyone say something like that, unless it was a discussion about grammar. People just say "Jem pomidora", and it's not the 'common mistake' level, it's the 'almost everyone says it this way' level. Same goes for other masculine fruits and vegetables.
Thanks for the reply but I am still confused. My question was more about why does the correct answer show "smacznego" instead of "smaczny"? Are you saying that technically "Jem smaczny pomidor/a" is correct but that native Polish speakers almost always say "Jem smacznego pomidor/a"?
If we forget the adjective for a moment, the main topic of discussion is whether "I am eating a tomato" is "Jem pomidor" or "Jem pomidora". As I said, the first one is technically correct, and the latter is actually used.
Then, the adjective has to match the form, and the only correct options are "smaczny pomidor" or "smacznego pomidora". Mixing those would be ungrammatical.