"Oni sprzedają dom Marcie."

Translation: They are selling the house to Marta.

[anothernobody]

How do we know we need "...to Martha"?

[immery]

I don't know English too good so maybe other preposition works but
Oni sprzedają dom Marcie.

Oni -they (nominative)

sprzedają- sell (present tense , plural 3rd person)

sprzedawać kogo? co? (Akk) - I sell who/what

sprzedawać komu ? czemu? (Dativ)- I sell whom? (who buys)

Dative Indicates the indirect object. To whom something is given, or action for somebody

Accusative Indicates the direct object of the sentence

(those last descriptions from https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Noun_cases , a place where I check the names of cases every single time )

[karlr42]

I think it's confusing because this is the first time(?) in the course you see the dative case and it's not introduced in a lesson at all.

[Mark958555]

I believe you are correct. I am seeing this dative for the first time in a "strengthen skils" exercise. Dative should probably have a lesson of its own, I would think. I guessed genitive, which was really dumb, since I just had Nie znamy Marty…

[chico.rios]

The way I did to learn it was: the dative case kind of contains the "to" in itself. When you use the dative case, you know that's the person in the sentence getting the thing "given" (or, in this case, sold). So, in this case, when you use Marcie (which is the dative case for Marta), you know Marta is receiving the thing being sold.

I don't know if I made myself clear, but it total makes sense in my head :)

[bluthbanana87]

Yup, 100% how all of the cases work.

[Zed895]

Because 'Marcie' is the dativus form of the noun.

[chb0lingo]

You presume that if I look at the noun I already know: It's nominative form. 2: What the dative ending would look like if I did know the nominative form.

[Zed895]

Look at karlr42's reply.

[bluthbanana87]

Oh man names are declined, too??

[immery]

yes they do. But woman's names that don't end with "a" don't.

[Rimdus]

How can i say " they're selling Marta's house?

[karlr42]

"Oni sprzedają dom Marty."
House is in accusative case, Martha is in genitive case to show possession.

[Marijo333]

that was just my question, I'm still lost with the different cases. Doesn't anyone know a trick to make the difference, or is it just time and practising that will help?

[Stuart331299]

Why did you say that name!!

[Andrew.Broz]

"They are selling Martha the house" and "They are selling the house to Martha" both convey that Martha is the indirect object. However, the excercise currently only accepts the second form.

[Jellei]

Added the first one.

[Erik787431]

Definitely subtle - would this make sense "Sprzedają Martę dom"?

[Okcydent]

Only: Sprzedają Marcie dom - makes sense.

Sprzedają Martę means - they are selling Martha (to someone)

[arminia11_web_de]

What case is Marcie in, please? And I can't help but think that it wouldn't hurt to have a preposition between dom and Marcie.

[perrin917693]

Where am i going wrong with "they are selling their house to marta"? Is it only family that has the presumption of ownership?

For example

Ona jest mama = she is my mum

[Jellei]

Actually I don't see anything at all in "Ona jest mamą" that would suggest she's my mom. There isn't anything about 'me' in the sentence. Compare with "Rozmawiam z mamą" (I am talking with [my/] mom) - here 'I' am present in the sentence, so it's most probable that I'm talking with my own mom. Generally this 'presumption of ownership' states that the object is probably 'owned' by the subject of the sentence, and your sentence has "She" as the subject.

As for "their house", that actually makes a lot of sense. Added.

[perrin917693]

Damn thought I'd put a good example, at least I try haha.
Thanks I will make sure I remember that you must be involved in the statement for it to have that effect.

Thanks for the speedy response :-)